


Love and Miracles Out of Nowhere

by a_good_soldier



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Episode: s12e23 All Along the Watchtower, Fix-It, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Hallucinations, Homophobia, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Miscommunication, Multiverse, Post-Season/Series 12, Self-Destruction, Trauma
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-23
Updated: 2017-08-07
Packaged: 2018-11-17 14:48:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 31,829
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11277495
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/a_good_soldier/pseuds/a_good_soldier
Summary: Sam and Dean (somewhat accidentally) get the gang back together, featuring CONFLICT, FAMILY, DRAMA, PAIN, ROMANCE, SELF-DESTRUCTIVE TENDENCIES, and other common Supernatural themes! A fix it for the season 12 finale, so spoilers abound.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> ok folks, this one's a doozy! i've got most of the first four chapters written, and i think it's gonna be six chapters, but it might only be five so that's what i've put down since i don't wanna promise more than i can deliver. i promise not to abandon this, and you have two guarantees: 1) it has to be done before season 13 starts, because otherwise it'll be useless and i don't want to leave things unfinished, and 2) i'm marathoning all of supernatural this summer (i know, right? why do i do this to myself?) so i'll have lots of inspiration if i ever get stuck.
> 
> warnings for: hell trauma, grief, disordered eating, alcohol overuse/abuse, an instance of self-harm, some off the cuff internalized homophobia, consent issues related to what's happened to sam in canon. i'll be sure to add to this list if anything more comes into the stuff i haven't written yet. as always, feel free to direct any questions or concerns to my tumblr [agoodsoldier](www.agoodsoldier.tumblr.com).

They burned his body the morning after.

At least — and this is how Dean tries to justify it — at least they waited until the sun rose to do it. Sam had frowned a little and tried to arrange Cas’s limbs so he looked more at peace, while Dean watched him, paralyzed. And then when the sunlight hit him, so he looked even deader in the middle of a goddamn sun dappled meadow, Sam and Dean hacked away at the house and surrounding forest until they came up with just enough logs to build a pyre.

Dean poured the gas. Sam had to light the match.

“We shouldn’t have left him there,” Dean says, more to himself than to Sam. They’re in the car, and the ashes that used to be Cas are further and further away. Sun’s setting now, because it took near on eight hours for Cas’s body — for his clothes, his hair, his skin — to become unrecognizable. Dean watched. He probably breathed in the last of Cas’s fingers, his bones. His lungs.

Sam huffs out a breath, which is how Dean knows he’s awake. “No, Dean,” Sam sighs, eyes opening. The Impala rumbles on. “We had to. I mean, should we have dragged Cas— Cas’s body— in the backseat? The trunk? Burn him in the bunker? It’s, it’s good that we let him—” and Sam closes his eyes, runs his hands over his face. “We let him go with dignity. That’s good.”

And Dean know Sam’s still smarting from Gadreel, from Cas, from years and years of demon deals, but he still says it. “We should’ve found a way to bring him back.”

Sam turns up the music. He doesn’t say anything at all.

* * *

Beef jerky tastes worse the older you get, Dean finds, and it never tasted all that great to begin with. Should probably be grateful he’s not a pile of charred remains, though, all things considered. He’s not.

“So — I mean, Kelly was, well, dead, and — so I walk in, and there’s Lucifer Junior—”

“Hold up, you didn’t tell me you ran into the kid, what the hell, Sam—”

“No, it’s— Dean, I just walked in, and then boom, kid’s gone. I— I only got to see him for like, two seconds ‘fore he disappeared, but Dean. He’s a teenager now.”

“Great.” Dean swallows. Two hours left to Lebanon, and they’ve already got more questions than answers about the cosmic fucking consequence hanging over their heads. “We got a plan?”

Out of the corner of his eye, Dean can see Sam looking at him like he’s an idiot. “Dean. We got—” and then he deflates, like his righteous anger doesn’t fit well enough into their grief. “We pretty well got nothin’ here.”

“Well, we’ll find something. We always do.” It’s an optimism Dean doesn’t feel, but with the midnight black of the outside pressing in, they could use some light.

Sam smiles quick, there and gone again, more out of habit than any real pleasure. “How drunk are you gonna get tonight?” he asks, effectively changing the subject to something more immediately depressing than the destruction of the world. Winchester family bonding 101.

Hour and fifty-five minutes to Lebanon. “If I can still remember my name I won’t be drunk enough,” Dean admits. Sam sets his jaw, nods, and pretends to go back to sleep. The road goes on.

* * *

Dean microwaves half a box of crappy frozen hot pockets when they stumble in. They got back about three AM, and Dean’s frankly not looking forward to a second sunrise after— after. Seems like it should stay night at least a little longer, just to give them more time.

After they eat, Sam snags a bottle of the nicest booze they have, some old bitter Dean found in a cabinet somewhere when they first moved in. Not good enough for Cas and Mary, Dean thinks privately, but he still takes the glass Sam pours him.

Sam swallows. Time is hard to determine from inside their basement bunker, but it pushes at them anyway. Dean finds it hard to believe it’s already been a day and a bit since Cas—

“To getting Mom back,” Sam says, and Dean clinks his glass and drinks, even though he’s hardly sure they’ll be able to pull it off, not without their afterlives to bargain with.

They both sit there, contemplating their glasses. Sam finishes his drink off, so Dean does the same. The map table is as bright as ever, and God, Dean just wants to smash it all.

When he’s ready — when they’re both ready, when Sam catches Dean’s eye and nods — Dean gestures at the bottle, and Sam pours them another round. Dean figures he’s gotta do this one.

He can’t speak.

Sam waits, and waits, and the silence is fucking brutal. Eventually Sam must get tired or bored or as uncomfortable as Dean is, because he says, gently, “Dean—”

“No, I can—” Dean cuts himself off, because he doesn’t even sound human, his voice is so low. He clears his throat. “To Cas.” The table swims before his eyes, and his hands are shaking. “Hope he’s happy, wherever he is.”

“Amen to that,” Sam murmurs. This time, Dean swallows the double in one go.

Sam takes his time; he finishes his second drink just as Dean polishes off his third. “I guess you’re just gonna be downing these for the next three hours,” Sam jokes. It’s more a sad statement of fact than a judgment, but Dean’s still unjustifiably stung.

“Nah, ‘course not, Sammy,” Dean starts. He smirks. “I’m switching to the cheap shit after this round.”

Sam rolls his eyes good-naturedly, and Dean almost misses the days when his alcoholism warranted concern. He’s suddenly angry, once again taken by the urge to destroy everything in sight. He drinks instead.

“How you holdin’ up?” Sam asks eventually, when Dean’s switched them out for a half-empty bottle of discount shelf liquor.

Dean laughs. “How d’you think,” he spits, pissed off at all of it. Pissed off at his own damn self for letting it happen. Pissed off at his mom for getting herself gone when he’d just forgiven her for doing it the first time, pissed off at Cas for—

For leaving him alone. Again.

“Same here,” Sam says quietly. He’s looking at some point on their map, a gruesome play-by-play of that night probably running through his head. “Fuck, Dean.”

Dean hears him gulp down one breath, and then another, and then Sam’s breathing becomes loud and angry and terrified, and Dean looks up. There are tears streaming down Sam’s face, and God, Sam never cries — Dean’s the one that lets go all the time, cries like a baby anytime anything remotely emotional happens. Shit. “Sam—”

“I’m fine—” and Sam’s own voice betrays him, cracks into something barely human and his face is red and ugly and he’s scrubbing away the snot from under his nose. “Shit, Dean, I can’t— oh God—”

Dean watches, helpless, as Sam leans back in his chair and looks up at the ceiling. Sam’s breathing evens out into something normal, and then he blinks, and he’s back to those gasps, those sobs, the things that tell Dean something’s really really fucking wrong. Jesus Christ, what the fuck is he doing? Dean stands up, sways a little with the booze and the headiness of his worry, and pushes Sam towards his room. “Hey,” Dean murmurs, “hey, it’s okay, Sam.”

“We shouldn’t go to my room,” Sam says, “because I’ll probably just cry more.” Sam sets his jaw, and for a moment it looks like he’s going to be able to swallow those tears down, and then Dean’s hand on his shoulder breaks him again.

“Okay,” Dean says, because he doesn’t want to think about the correlation between his hand on Sam’s shoulder and the terrifying, unfamiliar sounds wracking their way out of Sam’s throat. “Okay, my room. That’s fine.” They walk over, and Dean sets Sam up on the bed. He kneels down. “‘m gonna take your shoes off, ‘kay?” He doesn’t wait for a response, just starts unlacing Sam’s boots.

“Aw, fuck,” Sam whispers. “Shit, sorry, Dean, Jesus—”

“Don’t apologize.” Dean pulls Sam’s boots off, then his nasty, sweaty socks. “Pants off, kiddo.”

Sam obligingly unbuckles his belt, pulls off his jeans. “Can I take a shower?” he asks, voice quiet, and Dean’s _wrecked_ at the fear in Sam’s voice. The fact that Sam feels like he needs to ask permission.

“Yeah, go,” Dean says, and watches as his little brother leans on Dean’s bed, on the wall, on the doorframe on his way to the shower. Fuck. Dean scrubs at his face, and he’s suddenly too sober to deal with the fact that his mother’s trapped in a fucking apocalyptic alternate universe with Lucifer, there’s a goddamn Satanic teenager on the loose, and Cas is— Cas is—

The shaking becomes too much, and Dean knows, intellectually, that Sam will need his room later, so he stumbles out of the door, punches the stone wall across the hallway, and makes his way to their library. The first book is flying off to smack into a pillar, and then the second book, and then Dean’s pushing over the whole damn shelf and feeling the rage build in him. He notices a half-empty glass of shitty whiskey, downs it, and lobs it at the wall. Its shatter is deeply satisfying, and that scares Dean, too, so he throws a chair at the wall and watches as it snaps in half.

Dean breathes in, and starts on the chair. It’s in half, but it’s not _broken_ , not torn apart like Dean wants it to be, and he also knows that it’s better to limit the damage to one chair than to tear apart the whole bunker. The first leg cracks over his knee, and the second chair leg splinters against the wall. Dean’s chest is heaving, and he takes a step back from the carnage.

He’ll have to clean this up before Sam sees it. He should— it would be better, actually, if he cleaned it now. His hands start twitching, and he thinks longingly of the cleaning sprays under the kitchen sink. Imagines being on his knees, scrubbing at the floor. Everything would be fixed if he just cleaned up, he thinks. That’s not healthy. That’s not true, and it’s not fucking healthy, but he’s— if he just scrubs and scrubs until everything’s sparkling clean then it’ll all go away—

“Dean?”

Fuck. Fuck fuck _fuck_. “Sam,” he says, spinning around, “sorry, I just— sorry—”

Sam’s wide eyed and _terrified_ , and Dean needs to go. Dean’s doing nothing but making things worse. “It’s fine,” Sam says, _clearly lying_ , the shake in his voice too prominent to be ignored. “It’s fine, just— do you need more time, or are you gonna, uh. Are you gonna come back?”

Are you gonna come back to your room. Are you gonna come back to your room, furious and desperate and _violent_ , Sam’s asking, that’s what he’s asking, he’s asking _are you gonna come back and hurt me_ and that’s not fucking acceptable.

“I can’t,” Dean spits, and Sam flinches out of his way when Dean walks past. Good. “I’m— I gotta go—”

“No, Dean, c’mon, man—”

“ _Look at yourself!_ ” Dean watches as Sam steps back, offended, and God, Dean hasn’t done anything right. “Sam, you’re— you’re scared of me, and you _should_ be, okay?”

Dean watches as Sam breathes in, and doesn’t say anything. Doesn’t say Dean’s wrong.

“Go to bed,” Dean says, voice cracking. “I’ll clean this stuff up. Just go.”

Sam swallows. “Are you gonna come back after?”

“No,” Dean says, and tries not to focus on Sam’s shoulders falling, the release of tension. Oh Christ. “I’ll— sorry, I just— go to bed, okay, Sammy?”

Sam blinks, and turns to go. He’s been shivering this whole time, Dean realizes, and then remembers it’s not his place anymore to give him a blanket. Besides, there’s nothing in reach but the battered carcasses of what used to be furniture. “Come back eventually, okay?” Sam’s voice is quiet but determined, and Dean almost passes out with relief.

“Yeah, ‘course, Sammy.” Dean watches Sam go, and turns to the mess he’s made. He’ll clean, and then he’ll hit the road. Give Sam some space.

Most people are better off away from him. He’s just realizing it earlier than usual, this time.

* * *

Eileen had been too good for him. Which, well. That’s not the point when she’s fucking dead, is what any decent person would say, but Sam can’t stop himself from selfishly drawing the link between WINCHESTER AFFILIATE and DEATH. She asked them for help. She mailed them a fucking letter, and wrote, _can I bunk with you guys for a few days?_

He should’ve done more. Should’ve called her, should’ve checked their damn mailbox earlier. Eileen deserved a hell of a lot more than death by hellhound at the hands of the fucking British Men of Letters.

Dean’s been gone for a day and a half. Sam tries not to think about the night he left, but it’s hard when he opens up his phone to distract himself and remembers that less than half his contacts are still alive.

A notification pops up on his computer. After the first Brit-related confrontation with Dean, Sam put some work in and made that computer algorithm a reality, mostly so he could have more time to focus on emergencies. There hadn’t been any in sight when Sam had made the damn thing, but there would always be something more important than combing through newspapers for cases.

Sam clicks on the newspaper articles linked in the notification. One town with reports of dug up graves, people in places they’re not supposed to be, and a terrified teen with a chunk bit out of her arm. Sounds like a ghoul.

Sam’s phone blinks at him with a depressing kind of optimism. _Just send a text and you won’t be alone anymore_ , it tells him, not bothering to consider the fallout.

Great. He’s anthropomorphizing his phone now.

**need a case? ghoul, wellington, ks**. Sam hits send before he can think better of it, and adds a link to the most comprehensive of the three articles. Dean probably won’t go for backup, which is stupid, but they’re kind of past caring about anything lower on the food chain than a demon. ‘Course, that’s the kind of cockiness that gets you killed, but Sam feels like the universe owes them one after the month they’ve had. 

* * *

Sam’s text comes in the early afternoon, more than a full 24 hours after the night Dean left. It’s a case. Right, okay. Sam’s sending him out on cases now. No _how are you_ , no _when are u comin back_ , no _still alive?_. Not that Dean would know what to do with anything like that, so really, this is for the better.

He plugs his phone into the outlet at the diner, and God, Dean feels like one of those teens glued to their phones, bringing their chargers around with them everywhere. He’d driven down to Beloit the other night, and then took a leisurely coupla hours to head down to Wichita yesterday, so hey, he’s right next door. No reason not to take the case. ‘Sides, he could use the distraction.

**on it**. Sam doesn’t respond, so Dean digs into his pie and tries not to think about the message chain two below Sam’s that he’s too chickenshit to delete.

Last thing Cas texted him was from before the whole nephilim baby mess, from even before he went AWOL. God, the last thing Cas texted him was a picture of Crowley’s back with **:(** for a caption, from back when they were working together. Dean never responded because a few days after he got the text he was in a goddamn prison, and then because Cas was right there, in person, and Dean didn’t need to use his phone to have a conversation with the guy.

The name above Cas is Mom’s, and Dean doesn’t even want to think about touching that.

He closes his messages, and gets a cup of coffee for the road.

* * *

_It’s easy, easy like… like dying, if you’re used to that. Easy as pie._

_All you need to do is— okay, sure, we could do that too— see, the reason I’m here is because you asked me to be here. Uh huh. You don’t remember? Hey, maybe it wasn’t— maybe you didn’t use your words, kiddo. Did you know angels can sense longing?_

_You didn’t know that? Seriously? I thought you were— okay, okay, no, that’s fine, I’m not disappointed. I’m not disappointed, I’m just angry— ha, no, that was a joke. No, of course I’m not. But let’s get back to it, okay? You want things to be better and easier, right? It can happen, I promise. You don’t want to be a leader. Leading is hard, kid, it’s real hard. You can make mistakes, and those mistakes can cost people their lives. Just being around you can cost people their lives._

_That, you already knew._

_So you wanna make things right. Just one easy step, c’mon, you can do it. Easy as pie. All you gotta do is say y—_

Sam shivers himself awake. He must’ve kicked his blankets off the bed in his sleep.

He’s so cold. That’s all it is. He’s just cold.

* * *

_Splat._

The first bite of Dean’s knife into the ghoul’s neck brings him straight back to the Mark, the easy violence of the First Blade in his hand. Sweat pours down the back of his neck; he’s not used to doing this work in sunlight, half past one in the middle of an open field just outside the city limits, but there’s no one around for miles and this ghoul’s gotta go.

When he’s done, there’s nothing for it but to burn the damn thing right there on the ground. Dean clears the dead grass as best he can, nervous about a wildfire spreading, and lights it up.

Sky’s too empty, too white. Dean watches as the ghoul turns to smoke and douses the embers when it’s done. It’s too hot, too dry, and Dean feels naked in his t-shirt. He hates summer.


	2. Chapter 2

When Sam was fifteen, he ended up in charge of the high school A/V crew. He was only a sophomore, but there was a hell of a lot of drama with the older kids, especially since the A/V crew turned out to be an explosively incestuous group. Sam remembers sitting wide-eyed in the underfunded tech ‘room’ (more like a closet) with two freshmen as James told Kayla that he only hooked up with her because Mike bet that she wouldn’t let him, and then Kayla said that James’ girlfriend Nancy said that she faked all her orgasms with him, and then Mr. Grupman walked in and kicked all the upper years out of tech for good, and their merry band of seven became three.

Mr. Grupman looked at the trio, nervous and kind of excited from seeing the aftermath of drunken high school basement parties play out in front of them, and sighed. “Who’s the oldest?” he asked, and Sam raised his hand guiltily. “Great. Sam, right?”

“Yessir,” he squeaked. Sam cleared his throat and pushed his hair out of his eyes. “Yup, that’s me.”

“Congrats, you’re in charge.” Mr. Grupman looked at them. “Am I gonna hear that kind of nonsense from you guys?”

“No, Mr. Grupman,” came the chorus of barely-teens. Mr. Grupman nodded, and left, and that was that.

Sam had looked at his two minions. “I’ll go talk to the drama department and see what they need for the next play.” The minions nodded, and escaped the dark tech closet. Sam lingered for a moment, to look over his domain, and swept out of the room with a bounce in his step.

Dean noticed. By that point Dean had been out of school for almost three years, so Sam thought he’d be safe from the ribbing, but when Dean pried out the source of Sam’s energy, he’d made fun of his nerd brother for the next week.

When Dad pulled them out of school a week after that, Sam had been almost friends with his two freshman underlings. He’d grabbed a computer in the next town’s library, and logged onto his email account. A surprising number of unread emails loaded: **Update: New Response in The Tolkien Forum** ; **Hi u ok?** ; **dude what the hell** ; **date SeXXXy Chinese Girl!** ; **New UniverseLore Thread “Were-Djinn??”** ; **where r u**. He clicked on the newest one.

> From: [**jj1984_fun@live.com**](mailto:jj1984_fun@live.com)
> 
> Subject: **where r u**
> 
> **hey sam guess u didnt get my other emails. grupman said u left skool guess ur not comin back. i get it noone takes tech seriously but i thouhgt u cared about us. if u knew u were gonna ditch y did u even get involved???**
> 
> **whatever hope ur still alive maybe nx time try not 2 comit 2 somethin u cant stick with**
> 
> **xX_jAmIe_Xx**

When Sam went home, Dean must’ve recognized the look on his face — a look they’d both worn at one point or another, used to abandoning things and people that meant something. His mouth twisted, and he gave Sam the Pop Rocks pack he’d bought for himself at the 7-11, and he didn’t say anything about tech, least not for a good while.

* * *

Wellington, Kansas, is far behind him as Dean makes his way south. Even clipping down at eighty miles an hour, the air coming in from his windows is hot and sticky. He’d slept over in Blackwell the night before, crossing the state line into Oklahoma just in case someone found the crispy remains of that ghoul before they rotted into the ground. He’d tried watching pay per view porn and changed the channel before the free preview was done, disgusted mostly with himself and a little bit with the scratchy comforter that hundreds of men his age had probably jerked off on before him. His thumb had hovered over Sam’s name on his phone, and then he’d turned off the damn thing and gone out to get uproariously drunk.

He’s avoiding thinking about the most important thing he did last night, which was hook up with a girl whose name he never got wind of. She must’ve just hit thirty, if that, and when he’d woken up panicked in her bed just before five AM, he’d escaped to his car and peeled out before he could even brush his teeth.

He brushed them at the next rest stop, obviously, grossed out by the tacky heaviness of his tongue and the taste of old whiskey in the back of his mouth.

Now, though, all that’s far behind him, burned out by the daylight. Hell, before last night it was far behind as in _months_ behind him. It’s rare these days that Dean’s taken over by his own libido, and even if it’s a little weird to think about, he’d take any bet that Sam’s the same way. Point being, it’s all open road and steaming blacktop, and Dean gets to forget about being a gross old creep until the next time it hits him, his self-conscious sleaziness masking the deeper discomfort of having lived well beyond the years he should’ve been given.

If he could— if he could just trade the years he’s got for someone else who deserves ‘em, that would be great. Anyone would deserve it more than he does, really, but he thinks of Charlie and Kevin, who got fucked over by Winchester luck, of Eileen, who should’ve had decades ahead of her, of Jo and Ellen and, shit, Layla. If he’d just let that reaper take him back outside that faith healer tent, she would’ve had her life, and he wouldn’t have had to watch anyone die for him.

He’d never have met Cas, and that’s unthinkable now, but surely— surely he hadn’t had this emptiness in him back in 2006, when he was first supposed to die. Surely he wouldn’t have known what he’d be missing, the way he does now.

It feels sacrilegious to even think it, and he offers up an apology to Cas, even if Cas is nothing now. Not that he is— he’s gotta be something, somewhere. He has to be.

If he saw Cas again, he’d apologize for that thought, probably. He’d say, _I thought I’d be better off if I never met you, because it hurt too much when you were gone, but that was a damn lie._ And he’d say, _I’m so fucking grateful for you, even when you fuck up,_ and he’d say, _You said you loved me and I never said it back, and that’s another one that’s going in the books for stupidest mistakes to ever make_.

Then he feels guilty for not thinking about how to get Mom back, but he can’t. Jesus, he’s still got guilt held over from that decade in Hell, and sometimes he hates himself so bad, the only thing stopping him from ramming Baby into a telephone pole and hoping the steering column shoves right through him is the amount of time he’s spent fixing her up. It’s too much, it’s too damn much to lose everyone at once like this and know it’s your responsibility to fix it, so he shuts it all down and focuses on the pavement in front of him.

Between towns like this, radio stations are more often than not static, and when they’re not, they’re shitty sports commentary. The dust of a roadside construction site blows into Dean’s car, and he coughs. Sunlight burns his knuckles. He pops in Dad’s old Desperado tape, and the Eagles are softer and sadder than he usually listens to, but Dean’s wallowing, okay. Let him have this one.

The banjo of Twenty-One hits him like a shocked nerve. _I can’t give a reason why I should ever wanna die_ , Frey sings, ironic hindsight bit into every word.

_Yeah, buddy_ , Dean thinks, _same here_.

* * *

The lore’s pretty shady on alternate universes. The bibliographies of 1930s journal articles have bounced him from book to book, which refer back to each other in an unending spiral of uselessness. According to the ‘definitive’ texts on the subject, alternate worlds either don’t exist, exist but can never be seen, or are so difficult to access safely that it would probably be better to die in a fiery plane crash than to even try.

In desperation, Sam’s stooped to reading world-crossing fiction written by people with the vaguest connections to anything that even looks like it could have possibly been related to the supernatural. C. S. Lewis, Philip Pullman, hell, Cornelia Funke. He’s read every parallel universe theory known to sci-fi. There’s just nothing out there, and Sam’s getting more and more desperate. When Dean comes back, Sam wants to have something useful for him; it’s the same instinct that had him delivering cheeseburgers to a newly-undemoned Dean a couple years back.

Sam’s concentration is broken by the chime of a text message. It’s Jody: **Got some hunters asking after those Brits. What should I tell them?** Seconds later, another message pops up: **p.s. you doing okay? Dean told me about Cas and your mom, haven’t heard from him since. if you wanna talk i’m here.**

He sighs. He taps his fingers against the stack of books he’s just tackled, thinking. **Tell them they’re gone, at least for now.** He sends it after a moment, and thinks about Jody’s second text. Is he doing okay? Does he want to talk?

**im running on empty** , he writes, and then deletes the text. **dean left too and i don’t know what to do**. that’s no good, either, and he sighs.

**the bunker’s too big and empty. i keep seeing lucifer around every corner. i need a hug but more importantly i need you to stay away from me so you don’t get killed either. jesus christ eileen’s dead and i should just stop trying, shouldn’t i?**

Nope. Finally, he settles on, **i’m doing okay, thanks for the offer. tell the girls hi for me.**

He doesn’t get a response back from Jody for a minute, and he surveys the table in front of him. He might need to make something up out of what he’s got. Been awhile since he got creative with the rituals, and he only ever did that out of an addict’s desperation. Sam’s stomach grumbles, and he considers going to the kitchen.

Sam hasn’t eaten in a few days, subsisting on water and saltine crackers because anything else makes him wanna hurl. He’s been alone with Toni too many times to feel safe in this place, and that table over there was where Sam had picked up the phone only last week and Lucifer’s voice, playful like a goddamn cat with a mouse, had answered him. Not to mention the fact that the memory of Lucifer-Cas’s hand pulling out through his skin in the next room, his too-familiar grip on Sam’s soul, is as sharp and clear as though it happened yesterday. Before that he never remembered it right, never remembered exactly how vile it was that Satan’s fingers know their way around his soul; he knows it now, though, repetition branding Lucifer’s hands into his body.

The thought of food, of anything in him the way so many people — things — have been, is sickening. It’s like his stomach was squeezed into nothing, pulled out of him clean, and now there’s no space left in him for anything at all.

When he blinks himself out of that headspace, there’s a new message from Jody. **Saw those three little dots blinking for a lot longer than those two sentences should’ve taken. Seriously. You wanna talk? We can call instead if you want, I got time.**

He oughta give her something. He owes Jody that much, but the thought of laying it all out bare is enough to make him sick. **maybe later** he texts, feeling shitty for the cop out. He breathes out a sigh of relief when he sees Jody’s **ok. take care, sam**.

**you too** he sends back, and opens the next book on the table.

* * *

The all-American summer is for cute girls and camping trips, but Dean’s pushing forty and the transience of that summer high feels more depressing than enlivening. Dean sees more of himself in the old men smoking on their front porches at dusk than in the tanned, beach-going teens he drives past, and the hot sun seems to bring only dead grass and gloomy twilight. This next case is out in some town of about a hundred people, where the mysterious death of a young waiter at the town’s only diner is unusual enough to actually ring alarm bells.

The afternoon Dean arrived, a small dust storm raised itself up on the outskirts of town, blowing in grit through the edges of the windowpanes and under the motel door. He wondered at first whether it was related to his arrival, until the nice young lady who served him coffee the next morning said they got near a dust storm a week. “And they ‘most always come on the weekend, like even the land knows we all oughta be safe at home,” she jokes, moving on to the trucker across the diner. Dean smiles too late for her to see it, thinking up connections between dust demons and gory wait staff deaths.

Other than the tip about dust storms that probably isn’t relevant, day one is a bust. Dean trudges through the sweltering heat to his car, drives with his busted A/C to the coroner’s office, and has to fight his way in to see the body, which doesn’t give him any clues. Seems like for once the news has reported everything the cops know: a skinned-open body, an open mouth, scooped out eyes. Kinda gory for the front page, but print media’s dead anyway.

Dean shivers his way out of the freezing coroner’s office, experiences some kind of heat shock from the humid outdoors, and sits in the Impala’s driver seat. Her black hood is almost too bright to look at, reflecting the sun like that. A fly squashes itself against the windshield.

Dean’s lethargy reminds him of when he was learning to drive. Eleven, and Dad had figured that Dean was old enough to hotwire a car and git if Sam and him got themselves in trouble. It was the middle of the night, because they had to be sure no one’d see a preteen behind a steering wheel. Was a cold desert night, too, and Dean was running on about three hours of sleep caught hours earlier in an afterschool nap.

The Impala brings him back to the motel, chugging along gamely in the soupy windless heat. Dean collapses onto the bed, too tired to do more than shrug off his jacket and his boots. It’s barely five PM, but Dean cracks his eyes open to make sure his door’s locked, and then passes out.

* * *

Trying to piece together different parts of rituals from different books is leading him nowhere useful. Sam tries to focus, but even he can’t make something out of nothing.

He keeps thinking about it.

Dean had stumbled out the door, and Sam had been too drunk or too morose to stop him, and a week later that seemed to be that. It hasn’t been long enough between text messages to start getting worried, but Dean’s off hunting God knows what, _alone_ , and Sam is—

Sam is reading books.

Or _trying_ to read books. Everyone’s dead, except for Mom, and if Sam doesn’t find anything useful then Mom will be dead too. But he’s still caught on his grief. Doesn’t help that he’s sitting where Toni Bevell of all people had her throat slashed.

Suddenly, he’s not convinced he’s really— he slaps the table, hard, but it just sparks a fuzzy ringing in his head. His hand doesn’t feel anything at all. The time it takes to reach for his phone takes about five hours and no time at all, and it’s not— it’s not _real_ , none of it, that’s not his body, those aren’t his fingers, and the phone number pad shines menacingly at him. He presses the contacts button, and it takes a year and a decade for it to open up, and there’s Dean’s name, right below Charlie’s old number, fuck, fuck, _fuck_ —

Sam calls Dean, and doesn’t really feel like he’s doing it at all, and when Dean’s voice escapes faded and canned from the speaker, it doesn’t help at all. Shit. Sam hangs up on Dean and counts his fingers. If he can count them, then he knows it’s real, it’s not a dream, he’s not in his head—

He heaves in a breath, and counts. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten. Ten fingers. That’s right. His phone is ringing. Sam counts them again. One to ten. There’s a knife behind him — there’s weapons everywhere in this house, and that’s how he knows it’s home — he slices into his left palm, more out of muscle memory than anything else, and feels it. He _feels_ it. He pushes just below the cut, watches as blood oozes out. He feels it. That’s his blood, and he feels it.

Sam closes his eyes, leans back, and laughs.

* * *

_I love you_ , Cas chokes out, black gunk spewing from his mouth. Dean swallows.

Cas looks at him directly. _I love you, Dean_ , he says. Dean doesn’t reply. There’s a siren going in the background, probably an ambulance a block or two away; otherwise it’s silent. Mary and Sam fade away, and there’s just Cas with his pleading eyes locked on Dean’s.

_Dean, I love you_ , he repeats, and Dean blinks. He can’t even move his hands. _Please_ , Cas says, and pushes himself to standing, blood leaking from the wound in his stomach. The ambulance gets louder, and Dean wonders who called it. If they called it for Cas. _Just tell me you know_ , Cas says, breathing heavy through the black slime pouring out of him.

Tell you I know what, Dean wants to ask, but he can’t. His throat’s blocked up, and all he can do is look at Cas, limping towards him with his hand outstretched like a leper. _At least tell me you know I love you_ , he rasps. _Give me that much_.

Dean can’t think over the wailing siren. Cas reaches him and lays his hand on Dean’s throat, choking him. Dean can’t move. _Give me something_ , Cas spits, rabid, _I’ve earned that much. I’ve died for you, Dean, the least you can do is_ —

Dean’s eyes snap open. The ceiling’s the same ugly stucco it was last night. He looks over at his phone, which keeps on ringing. On pure instinct, he answers. “Hello.”

There’s just breathing on the other side, and he looks at the screen. Shit, that’s Sam. “Hey, Sam,” he says, but there’s no response. Then, as he’s about to say something else, Sam — or whoever has Sam’s phone — hangs up.

The dream left a bad taste in his mouth; he’s not sure what’s worse, seeing Cas like that or knowing that his own fucked up psyche came up with the guilt trippy dialogue. He shakes it off and calls Sam back. “Pick up pick up pick up,” he mutters. It rings out, and then zilch. Damn it. He calls again. Nothing. “Damn it, Sammy,” he says, frustrated. He has a headache. “Come on, come on—”

Third time’s the charm. Sam’s voice is just a little too sloppy when he finally answers the phone. “Yeah,” he says, and Dean can tell he’s trying to be all business about it.

“What the hell was that?”

“Uh—”

“Don’t _uh_ me, Sammy, you called and did some seriously funky breathing and then hung up on me, okay, and then I tried to call you like ten times and you didn’t pick up, what the hell are you doing?”

Dean’s lightheaded with worry and the lingering guilt of his dream, so when Sam says, “It’s nothing, don’t worry about it,” he flips.

“Don’t _worry_ about it?” Dean stands up and paces around. He’s too used to taking his frustration out on inanimate objects; this is a nice motel room and the town’s too small for him to destroy property without most everyone hearing about it by the next day. Breathe in, breathe out. He presses the heel of his hand into his forehead to ward off the image of a half dead Cas stumbling towards him. “Sam, come on, man. What’s the deal?”

Dean can hear Sam considering whether it’s worth it to tell the truth. He must decide it is, because his response is begrudging and sounds honest. “I couldn’t really tell if, if I was— uh, I mean, it’s kinda weird.”

Dean waits. Sam isn’t any more forthcoming. He pushes the dream out of his mind to focus on Sam. “Gonna need a few more details than that.”

Sam sighs. “I— it’s, I think— I couldn’t tell if I was real.” He laughs, sharply, before Dean can reply to that. “It’s ridiculous, it’s not— I wasn’t hallucinating, it wasn’t that, it was just… I looked at my hands, and, and, an’ I thought, those aren’t mine. It was like someone else was dialing the phone.”

“Shit.” Dean looks around at his pristine motel room, with a mystery case that maybe isn’t even their kind of gig, and has to stop himself from offering to come back and take care of Sam. If Sam wants that, he’ll ask; steamrolling over him for his own good is what got them into this mess in the first place. “You, uh. How’d it stop?”

“I, y’know. Same thing I did when I was hallucinating Lucifer.”

“You don’t have a cut, though,” Dean remarks, stupidly. It hits him a second later. “Oh Christ, Sam, what did you do?”

“Just, just a little cut, right where the old one was,” Sam says. He sounds a little ashamed of it, but frankly, Dean’s not even sure whether that’s better or worse than Sam acting as though it’s a totally normal and safe coping mechanism. Fuck. Does this count as cutting? Dean missed that afterschool special, so he’s a little out of his depth.

“Shit,” he says again. There doesn’t seem to be anything else to say. Finally, because it feels like they’ve been dancing around having a real conversation for years now and it’s time to step the fuck up, he asks, “Do you wanna talk about it?”

He’s said that before, and said it in different words, checked on his brother in different ways, but actively seeking out an emotional conversation still feels like a scary level of commitment. But Sam’s fucking slicing into himself for non-supernatural ritual related reasons, and somehow, in their infinity of fucked up, self-destructive coping mechanisms, this is one that’s really scaring Dean.

“Tell me what you’re doing now,” Sam says, which isn’t exactly the response Dean was expecting, but he rolls with it.

“Okay, uh, just in a motel room out near Carney, south of Stillwater. It’s kind of a fucked case, I don’t know if you want me to talk about it…” When Sam doesn’t say anything, Dean continues, “Anyway, town’s tiny, this one waiter’s dead, and no one seems to have a clue about what went down so I’m investigating.”

After a beat, Sam says, “I was thinking about Lucifer.”

Right. Jesus Christ on a popsicle stick. When Sam doesn’t continue, but doesn’t hang up the phone either, Dean tries, “What about Lucifer?”

He doesn’t hear anything, and for a long moment he thinks, _you fucked it up, Winchester, you fucked it up_ — and then Sam goes, “I don’t think this body belongs to me anymore.”

Holy fuck. “What do you—”

“It’s like, Lucifer, and— and Gadreel, God, Dean, you can’t know what it’s like, when you can’t even blink, you can’t— you can’t say no—” Sam’s voice starts shaking. “I ever tell you what Toni did to me?”

That sounds like something more serious than plain old torture, which is a sentence Dean has never wanted to think in relation to his brother. “I don’t— I don’t think so.”

“She drugged me. Put me in a— like you an’ mom, what you said, about how Toni got you in her head. It was like that. She was in my head, and she made me think— she, she made me think we were together. And we— and we had— Christ, Dean, and I _liked_ it.” Sam swallows, loud. “Even Lucifer couldn’t make me like it, not really. Not like that.”

“Sam—” Dean wipes a tear off his face, mouth trembling. “Fuck, Sam, I—” He has a terrible thought. “You said Gadreel, you said— did he…” He doesn’t know how to finish that sentence, but it’s obvious enough what he’s talking about.

Sam laughs. “Not— well, I mean, c’mon, Dean. It’s the same damn thing.”

He doesn’t sound too torn up about it, which is maybe worse than if he’d screamed full on accusations at Dean. As it is, the weight of that sits heavy in Dean’s stomach. “Right,” he says, hoarse. “I— God, Sam, I’m sorry.” It’s inadequate, in the face of this— this _trauma_ , that’s what this is, this is fuckin’ PTSD and dissociation and other words that Dean’s only ever heard on medical dramas and crime shows.

“No, don’t— I didn’t say it for that,” Sam says, like Dean wasn’t supposed to apologize for facilitating what was _the same damn thing_ to his little brother as rape.

Oh Jesus. Jesus Christ, Jesus _fucking_ Christ, that thought is— breathe in, okay, he’s— he’s supposed to be the strong one, right now, but fuck, he’s really not feeling anything close to strong. “Okay,” he says, trying to keep it cool, willing his hands not to shake, “okay, then.” He tries to say something for a moment, chokes out consonants and chopped off beginnings of sentences, before he gives up. There’s nothing to say.

“I shouldn’t have told you that.”

That pierces sharp, too, and Dean scrambles to say, “No, no, I’m glad—” _shit_ “—I mean, I just.” It always comes back to this. “I’m supposed to protect you, Sammy,” he breathes, gut torn out and splayed across the phone line. He wishes he was there, so Sam could see something in his face, see what he can’t say aloud, but maybe Sam being free of him is the whole damn point.

“I need—” Sam starts, then stops. Dean doesn’t dare to breathe, for fear of losing the next words out of his mouth.

They don’t come.

“What do you need?” Dean asks, willing at this point to break any cosmic law to give Sam some goddamn peace.

Sam sighs. He laughs. “I just need some time,” he says. That wasn’t what he was originally going to say, but Dean doesn’t push. Dean doesn’t really have the right to push.

So Dean says, “Okay. You take all the time you need, all right? Ain’t nothin’ that needs doing right now.”

“Really, Dean? What about Mom?”

“I—” Dean doesn’t want to admit that he’s given up on her, that he’s half given up on this whole pathetic life of theirs, but with that slip it’ll be pretty hard to sell. He sighs. “Look. You can take a day or two at least, okay?”

“Yeah, okay.” Then Sam adds, quick like lightning, “Bye, Dean,” and Dean barely has time to choke out a goodbye before Sam’s hanging up the phone.

The moment he pulls the phone away from his ear, he’s suddenly thinking on all the things he could’ve said, all the ways he could’ve handled that better. _It wasn’t your fault, Sammy_ , or maybe _You’re not alone_ , or maybe anything that wasn’t that trainwreck of a conversation.

Cas is still growling at him, _Give me that much_ , and Dean’s— Dean’s not gonna make the same mistake with Sam. Not when they’ve run through their nine lives and more, not when Dean’s got a heart attack in the next decade and a half to look forward to if the job don’t kill him first.

He’ll say all he needs to say, make sure Sam’s in a good place, and then he’ll slip out of the picture. Hunt alone in his last few years, maybe hole up in one of Bobby’s old cabins, no need to drag anyone else down with him.

Dean pushes his knuckles into his eyes to stave off the tears. He’d gone through all that with Mom, told her they could start over again, and then she’d fucked off to Day After Tomorrow land before they even had time to think about being a family again. Now Sam’s reliving trauma so bad he doesn’t even think his body’s real. Dean puts his hands on his forehead instead, and the tears start running, quick and easy like they always are with him. “I’m sorry,” he whispers, and he doesn’t know who he’s saying it to, Cas or Mom or Sam or his own damn self. His dad, maybe, for failing to keep this rotted out family together. “Oh God,” he sobs. It’s almost like a prayer. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

Of course, no one’s listening. No one ever is.

* * *

Sam rereads the page in front of him. Takes ash, asofoetida, lungwort, and a little bit of spit to get to another realm, and fig to come back safe. Technically, it’s a spell to enter faerie realms, and the page’s header has a woodcut engraving of Rhiannon on a horse, but Sam’s sure he can tweak it for some universe hopping — maybe add a little blood and throw some stuff about other universes into the original Welsh. Maybe boost the mojo by translating it into Enochian.

It’s a deceptively simple spell. Sam squints at the near-illegible footnotes:  1 _equivalent herbs and magicks from your de_ _ſ_ _tination ought to be u_ _ſ_ _ed to a_ _ſſ_ _i_ _ſ_ _t in your return, along_ _ſ_ _ide the protective fig. In the event that the exi_ _ſ_ _tence of_ _ſ_ _uch herbs can not be guaranteed, it is_ **_not_ ** _recommended to journey into the Other realm._

Well, that’s helpful. Sam sighs. It’ll be easy enough to find ash in a post-apocalyptic wasteland, and he’s sure someone on the other side will know how to get the other two ingredients (or at least their equivalents, whatever the hell that means).

He turns his phone over in his hand. Dean would probably tell him not to do it, would say the risk is too big. Especially not a good idea when Sam’s having trouble differentiating what’s real from what isn’t, he’d say, and Sam shakes his head. It was a stupid idea to call Dean when he’s got enough on his plate already, and besides, it’s not like Sam’s head’s going to get better anytime soon.

Sam will just have to do this on his own. It’s too late to figure anything else out, anyway; according to the Ifugao calendar the Men of Letters got their hands on during the Philippine-American War (and yeah, Sam doesn’t want to think about what that must’ve involved), there’s a ten year planetary cycle that brings their gods of travel and transition closest to the Earth. They could do it later, sure, but doing it according to the cycle will give Sam the best results — at least, according to the lore. There’s other cycles he could follow, could wait for Mercury to be in a good position or summon some other culture’s pagan god to help him along the way, but this is easiest, and it’s coming up the fastest.

He’s got a twenty hour window, and that window starts tomorrow morning. Sam’s not sure if he’s got the calculations right, but it’ll be approximately 8 am tomorrow to 4 am the next day, so he figures he’ll shoot for sometime near the beginning and hope for the best.

He should probably call Dean, just to let him know what he’s doing. He doesn’t want to face Dean’s disappointment and rage when he hears about this, though, so maybe he’ll just… he’ll just check in.

He’ll tell Dean about it when he gets back. That’s a good plan.

* * *

_PAM’S ALL-DAY BREAKFAST! ONLY $5.99 FULL BREAKFAST SPECIAL (INCL. COFFEE BOTTOMLESS)_ screams the sign just outside the window. Dean looks down at his breakfast special; it’s certainly something all right. Two strips of soggy bacon, overcooked eggs, a handful of taters and two slices of unnaturally thin, lukewarm bread. In all fairness, the coffee is bottomless, even if that’s about the only good thing going for it.

Dean’s phone dings, and he pulls it out, ignoring his shitty food. Sam’s text just says **Sorry about the call. How’s hunting?**

Right. Like Sam normally checks in about Dean’s hunts, not to mention apologize for uncomfortable emotional conversations. Something’s up with him, Dean’s sure of it.

Anyway. He’s not sure how to respond. Eventually, Dean settles on **all good here** and powers through another few starchy bites of potatoes. Dean is seriously regretting his choice to venture out of town for food.

He’s looking out the window, keeping an eye on his car, when he sees movement. Dean’s not usually a people watcher, but he can’t take his eyes off this guy’s trench coat. No one wears trench coats in 2017 anyway, which makes it all the more unlikely that Dean’s seeing some rando wearing— wearing _Cas’s_ coat.

It’s not, obviously it can’t be, but that’s— and his shoulders, the way his shoulders are slumped, and his hair—

The man turns, and Dean’s already standing to drop a twenty next to his half-eaten breakfast when he catches a flash of his jawline. “Cas!” Dean calls the moment he’s out of the restaurant, “Cas, hey!”

The man —  _Cas_ , Jesus Christ, it’s Cas — stops, and Dean sprints after him. “Hey,” he pants, “hey, hey, what the hell?” Dean knows his eyes are bugging out, and he can’t stop it. He breathes in deep, and the oxygen only exacerbates his emotional distress. “What the _hell_?”

“Dean,” Cas says, and it’s _him_ , it’s gotta be, the way he drops Dean’s name like a judge’s gavel. Dean can’t catch his breath. Cas smiles, sad like all his smiles seemed —  _seem_ — to be these days. “You’ve found me.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey friends additional warning for some sort of sexual content in this chapter. also this chapter's real heavy on the alcohol consumption, just so you know. be safe & as always if you have any questions or concerns hit me up on tumblr @agoodsoldier

Dean leaves Cas’s cabin, stepping out into the flat plains. Of course Cas found himself a cabin in the middle of goddamn nowhere. Dean’s perversely relieved to see that since he hasn’t had the opportunity, Cas doesn’t seem to be desperate to integrate into the nearby town. He’d walked the twenty miles between the diner and his new place, apparently because he wanted to stretch his legs, so they’d taken the Impala back and despite the oppressively silent drive Dean’s glad they did. He’s not sure he’d’ve made it through actually having to follow the ugly as shit Kia Cas picked up God knows where.

Someone chopped down a tree near the cabin ages ago so there’s one lonesome stump, but otherwise it’s flat far as the eye can see. June is bug and sweat season, but the swarming flies feel easier than the stifling coolness of Cas’s new home. The stifling fact of Cas’s presence.

Jesus Christ. Cas is _alive_.

The shock of it — the betrayal of it — hits him all at once, the weeks of guilt and numbness speeding through actualized grief and into terror at this new development. Weeks, and Cas never thought to let them know. Cas recognized him, so clearly he doesn’t have the excuse of amnesia to hide behind, and it’s— Jesus, that’s—

Dean kicks the stump out of frustration, and kicks it again, and then he’s screaming at the situation and at Cas and at the fact that there’s nothing to punch or beat or fight. “You goddamn _son of a bitch_!” Dean yells into the air. “You fuckin’—”

“Dean.” Cas is quiet, too quiet, like he’s been since Dean ran into him. By accident, outside a goddamn diner in the middle of nowhere. The _fuck_. “What’s wrong?”

“What’s _wrong_?” Dean stalks towards him, and Cas just stands his ground, steps back once Dean gets too close for comfort. Dean’s breathing too fast and too loud, lightheaded. “You— you didn’t find us. You didn’t tell us. You have a _phone_ , right,” and Dean’s reaching into Cas’s pocket, the pocket of his stupid fuckin’ trenchcoat that he never goddamn takes off, Jesus Christ, tears are welling up in his eyes and Cas looks on, passive, while Dean’s all in his space. Dean takes out his phone and brandishes it like a weapon. “What, you forgot how to use this? Couldn’t call? Didn’t have _bars_?”

“I thought…” Cas looks away, showing a good goddamn emotion for fucking once. It doesn’t do much to make Dean any less mad. “I thought this would be easier.”

Dean lets that sink in. He thought it would be— and Dean was on tenterhooks, strung up by his own hope for the past three weeks. Waiting for God, for Lucifer’s kid, for Amara, for _someone_ to make right the void in his chest. Knowing all the while that it wasn’t gonna happen. Jesus Christ, and Cas thought that was _easier_?

“No,” Dean says, quietly. “No, come on, don’t say that shit. You think this was easy? You think it was easy for me to—” Dean swallows, and Cas mercifully doesn’t call him out on the tears Dean blinks back. “We burned your body. I watched you turn into ashes, man, don’t— don’t _say_ that shit! Don’t leave me behind and pretend it’s what I want, okay, I can’t—” Dean looks up at Cas, right in the eyes. “I can’t keep doing that.”

Cas nods abruptly. His mouth turns down at the corners. “I just wanted you to have a fresh start—”

“No, Cas—”

“—and I was wrong.” Cas sighs. “Come inside, Dean.” He turns without looking back at Dean. As always, Dean’s helpless to do anything but follow him.

* * *

They have to buy groceries.

It’s a stupid, mundane thing to be thinking about, but Dean’s searched every cabinet and opened Cas’s fridge a half dozen times and come up with squat. Even if Cas doesn’t need to eat, Dean does, and he could use the drive. Well, Dean’s actually not sure that Cas doesn’t need to eat, but Cas hasn’t said anything even though Dean’s stomach’s been rumbling for the past three hours, so he figures that’s a pretty good indicator.

Dean pokes his head into the living room where Cas has been reading _Good Omens_ , of all things. Apparently Gaiman and Pratchett’s Crowley is much more likeable than Castiel and Winchester’s. Figures.

“I’m gonna get some food,” he says, and Cas nods without looking up. Dean takes a key off the hook in the kitchen so he can lock the door behind him (as though anyone would break into a cabin three miles from the nearest, well, anything), and tries not to lose his shit over the absurd domesticity of the situation.

Dean drives, Leftoverture lasting him all the way to the nearest Walmart parking lot. It’s too bad the internet couldn’t tell him about any restaurants in the area, because he’d do anything to avoid this. The superstore looms, somehow terrifying in the early evening sun, a bastion of permalit zombie apocalypse supplies surrounded by too-quiet low-lying suburbia. Dean can’t help but think that it’s always the soccer moms who make the most vicious demons.

He takes a deep breath and a shopping cart, and braves the Walmart entrance. An old man greets him at the door, and Dean resists the urge to whisper _Christo_ as he passes.

Dean can’t resist throwing in stuff Cas will need if he stays for a while, stuff like bottles of seasoning and a whole mesh bag of garlic, even if it feels unnatural to be shopping for permanence. _Cas might not even be around in a week_ , Dean reminds himself, returning the on-sale refill gallon of dish soap to the shelf. The guy doesn’t even eat, you idiot.

The checkout lane is pretty painless, except for the old lady he bumped into, ears sparkling with jewellery a little too fancy for Walmart, who got mad at him for not ending his apology with ma’am. Rich people, he thinks. Un-fucking-believable.

On his way back, Dean drops by the convenience store a street down from the Walmart and snags two six packs and a bottle of tequila. They’ll probably need them.

* * *

After **all good here** , Sam didn’t get anything from Dean. Sam would be worried, but Dean’s always forgetting to check his phone; hell, the only time he looked at it more than three times a day was when he was waiting on a text from Mom. It’s only been seven, maybe eight hours anyway.

This time tomorrow he’ll be back in the bunker with Mom — or stuck in that other world, or dead, but he’s not thinking about what’s probably going to happen. Today’s going to be a hopeful day.

The problem is that it’s hard to be hopeful when there’s not much to hope for; maybe Mom makes it back, maybe Dean comes to the bunker, but no matter what happens, it’s all just chugging along, using the resources he’s got to be some kind of leader the way Bobby was until he finally drops dead, lungs seizing up on him or muscles just giving way. God knows what kind of past blunt force trauma is waiting under the surface to have its final moment with him.

Sam pulls out his phone. Alicia Banes, dead; Max Banes, probably doesn’t want to hear from him; Charlie Bradbury, dead; Castiel, dead; Crowley, who the fuck cares; Benny Lafitte, dead; Eileen Lahey, dead; Jody Mills, alive; Mom, who the fuck knows; Rowena, dead; Kevin Tran, dead; Dean Winchester, alive, barely.

He’s going to be who Jody and the rest of them need him to be, he is, but tonight— tonight he gets to take a night off. Right? He doesn’t have to be a leader all the time. He can forget about it all tonight.

It’s not even six, but Sam pulls out the vodka. Alcohol’s better than most vices.

* * *

Chicken’s in the oven and Dean doesn’t have much to do but wait.

He checks his phone. Puts it back in his pocket, pulls it out again. Dean knows that Sam and Jody will want to know about Cas, but he can’t text them just yet. He doesn’t have the words. He tells himself he just doesn’t know if Cas is really Cas yet.

Cas passed the holy water, the silver, the devil’s trap, the salt, and the iron tests, so Dean’s not sure what else there could be. The rational thing would be to call Sam, to tell him where he is and what’s going on, but Dean guiltily puts his phone back in his pocket. There’s something cozy — claustrophobic, maybe, but comforting all the same — about having Cas to himself for a little while.

Dean sighs and takes a pull of his beer. He’s not drinking because he’s sad, so that’s already a step up from his usual drinking habits, and besides, sobriety’s overrated.

“That smells good,” Cas says from behind him. Dean jumps, even though he was expecting it.

“How’s your book?” he asks, to make conversation. Cas walks past him to get a beer — so he drinks, at least — and leans against the kitchen counter, looking for all the world like a typical suburban dad home from work. He’s taken off his trenchcoat, even though Dean didn’t say anything about it. He looks like a tiger in a middle school playground.

“Interesting,” Cas says, and drinks his beer. Dean watches the long line of his throat, absorbing the bob of his Adam’s apple, the softness around his jawline. Cas’s body is aging. “I find the humor bewildering at times, but necessary to grasp the magnitude of the events portrayed.”

Dean thinks of the magnitude of the events in his life and the dearth of humor there. He didn’t get anything to help him grasp shit. “What events?”

Cas smiles ruefully. “The apocalypse.”

“No shit,” Dean says, feigning surprise. He already knew that. Already read the book, actually, during those lonely years after Dad left him and before he got Sam back. Cas must’ve known that.

The timer on the oven dings, saving Dean from hearing about how funny nice-Crowley’s apocalypse is. He takes out the chicken, the baked potatoes. There are steamed vegetables on the table. Dean will never get tired of making food in a real kitchen that doesn’t have a minibar attached to it.

“That looks great,” Cas says, so Dean gets two plates and two sets of cutlery.

Dinner is served, and Dean’s not much for self-affirmation or anything but the chicken isn't dry and the veggies aren’t soggy, so that’s a win in his books. Cas devours his food like it’s the first time he’s eaten in weeks. Maybe it is.

“So, Cas,” Dean says through a mouthful of food, because if he’s not casual about it then he won’t be able to say it at all, “how do you think it happened?”

Cas tilts his head, that birdlike curiosity, and Dean’s heart thuds painfully in his chest.

“Your resurrection,” he clarifies. Drinks more beer. “What do you think?”

Cas shrugs. “I’m not sure,” he says. “The only thing powerful enough to bring an angel back from death is God.”

“Or Amara,” Dean says, and Cas nods his head. “But they’re both out of the picture.”

“Exactly.”

Dean thinks for a second, and asks, “What about Lucifer’s kid? The nephilim?”

Cas frowns. “I suppose so,” he says, “but why would he want to raise me from the dead?”

“Hey, you took care of the kid, y’know. Maybe he’s repaying a debt.” Dean fiddles with his bottle of beer and busies himself with his food. He doesn’t like thinking about those weeks this year when Cas wasn’t Cas. He doesn’t like thinking about those _months_ last year when Cas wasn’t Cas.

“Maybe.”

It’s a noncommittal answer, and Dean wants more than that. He downs the rest of his beer, and gets up for another one. “You want another?” he asks, gesturing to Cas’s beer with his own empty, and Cas shakes his head.

“But seriously, Cas,” he starts once he’s sitting again, “do you have any theories? Do you remember what happened when you came back?”

“No and no,” Cas says, frustrating clearly mounting. “I don’t know.”

“You gotta remember something,” Dean presses. “I mean, Cas, don’t you wanna know?”

Cas slams his fork down on the table. “Of course I do,” Cas snaps. “But I _don’t_ know. I don’t know how I got here, I don’t know why I’m alive, and I don’t know who brought me back. I wish I did, but I don’t.”

His fury is palpable. Dean pokes at his food, cowed. “Think it might be related to the case I’m on?” he asks quietly.

He only realizes the implications — that someone might’ve died for Cas to come back, that someone might’ve been _sacrificed_ — when Cas says, “I’d rather have stayed dead.”

Dean’s selfish enough to know that he wouldn’t have preferred that at all, but he’s not so emotionally inept as to actually say that. He nods instead, and puts down his cutlery.

Finally, he clears his throat. “What was it like? Being dead?”

What he’s really asking — what Cas knows he’s really asking — is _where did you go?_ , but it seems too cruel to ask him that. Dean thought angels became nothing when they got smoked, wings burned onto the ground and everything, but clearly Cas had to have been pulled back from somewhere.

Cas’s mouth twists. “I don’t know where I went, after I died,” he murmurs. “I wish I did. I wish I knew anything about what was done to me.”

Dean looks away. “Okay,” he says, “okay.” Find a safer topic, Dean. “Why come here, then? How’d you even find this place?”

“I remember I awoke in a field, in the daylight. It was — it really was the middle of nowhere.” Cas stops eating, but his plate is only half finished. Dean notices these things. “I walked, and it must have been — it was the rest of that day, and a full night, and maybe half a day more, and I found this place. No one was here, and it seemed like no one had been here for a while.” He grins. “Finders keepers.”

The incongruity of Cas talking like an eighth grader has Dean reeling. He drinks, to avoid thinking about it.

“This has been delicious, Dean,” Cas says after a pause. Dean blinks. Half his food is still on the plate. Cas notices Dean looking and explains, “My appetite is not what it was when I was fully human. It’s no fault of your cooking, Dean.”

Dean doesn’t say that, historically speaking, not eating is a sign he’s looked out for from Sammy since the kid learned how to be picky — it means anger, or grief, or anxiety, or illness, or whatever it meant that week before Flagstaff when Sam picked at his food and found a way to criticize everything Dean was able to scramble up on their shitty motel kitchenette until he got so mad he stormed out and left Sam vulnerable and alone.

Instead, Dean nods, and stands up to do the dishes. Cas says, “You cooked, so I should clean up,” like he learned it from a TV show; Dean just says, “Please,” derisive, and brings the plates over anyway.

He washes and scrubs the dishes and Cas dries them and puts them away, and like with the kitchen key hook from before, the domesticity prickles at the back of Dean’s neck. There’s a blush, or something like it, creeping up his spine, and Dean bends down further to hide it.

“I’ll get ready for bed,” Cas says, “unless you want to go first. There’s only one bathroom.”

Of course there is. Dean shakes his head mutely and watches as this half-human Cas goes to get ready for bed. He might be the only angel on Earth who knows what getting ready for bed even means.

He checks his phone again, and sees a message from Sam. **what’s up?**

Dean: **not much.**

Sam: **you okay?**

Dean looks at the message. He genuinely has no idea how to respond. Is he okay? Is he hallucinating? He hears the shower start in the background, and can’t tell if that’s supposed to help him understand what’s happening here.

Sam had a fucking breakdown a day and a half ago and they haven’t talked about it since.

It’s derailment, or maybe it’s just self-defense; whatever it is, Dean texts back **are you?**. He doesn’t expect a response.

The shower stops, and Dean realizes five minutes have passed; his screen dims, and then, one minute later, it turns black.

On his way to his backpack, he tosses his phone onto the couch. He grabs a shirt and a clean pair of boxers out of his duffel on his way to the bathroom; Cas steps out, steam billowing after him. He’s wearing nothing but boxers. Jesus Christ, Dean’s not prepared for this.

“Hope you left me some hot water,” he jokes, trying to cover up his sudden inability to swallow properly.

Cas grins. “It’s my cabin,” he says.

“It literally isn’t.” Dean hears Cas chuckle as he steps around him to the bathroom.

Dean closes his eyes and tries not to imagine Cas standing where he is now, naked, vulnerable, wet— okay, it’s not really working, but hey. It’s the thought that counts.

* * *

It’s been almost three hours since Dean texted him **are you?** , and Sam’s still not sure how to respond. He’s not sure if he’s okay, but he is definitely, definitely drunk. It’s great. He can barely feel his toes and no one’s around to stop him or make him get off the floor. He’s doing just fine.

Tomorrow he’s gonna do something stupid. He should tell Dean about it, except Dean probably doesn’t think Sam’s capable of keeping it together long enough to get through this. Dean probably doesn’t think Sam’s capable of much at all.

He’ll be proud, though, when it’s done. He’ll be happy Sam’s finally putting himself on the line. Lucifer was right. After Stull, Sam never made the sacrifice play, never made the risky calls. He just played it safe and easy and he never did the right thing and because of that just about anyone could walk right into him like a 24 hour superstore, open all the time and everything’s on sale.

Now it’s different. He’s going to take a risk, for a good reason, and he had to figure it out on his own and it was fucking hard. It was fucking hard, okay, and that wasn’t fair, it wasn’t fair that Dean ditched him to go on his stupid Kerouac reenactment. But then again, who is he to ask for the easy way out?

His phone’s right next to him. He could call Dean, tell him how he feels. It sounds like a good idea, keeps sounding like a good idea right up until Dean’s voicemail starts playing. _Jesus Christ_ , Sam thinks, right as Dean’s voice tells him to leave a message. There’s a beep.

“Oh shit,” Sam starts, because he meant to hang up before the voicemail started recording. Shit. Now he’s committed. “I— shit, Dean, I can’t believe I got your fucking voicemail. What the hell are you doing, man? Where _are_ you?”

Sam tries to stand up so he can take another shot, but he trips and drops his phone. “ _Shit_ ,” he whispers, shit, shit, Dean’s gonna hear this. He picks up the phone again. “Sorry, I— I dropped m’phone, sorry. Fuck.” He blows air out of his nose, loud, and snorts at the sound. “Aw shit, wait, okay, okay, I gotta say something, now that I’m here.” He puts the phone on the table to throw back a double like it’s water, and burps. “Okay, I was thinking, and, Dean, I gotta tell ya. I’m goddamn selfish. I thought I wasn’t— shit, ‘kay, sorry, I almost slipped off the chair. Thought I wasn’t, but man, the Men of Letters showed me… I just keep waiting for things to be easy. I _want_ ‘em to be easy. That’s not fair. I don’t get to have it easy, just because— just because—”

Sam loses his train of thought. “No one else gets it easy,” he says, because that’s pretty true. “So why do I, huh? Lucif’r was right, y’know, he said— fuck, Dean, I can’t think about ‘im without—” and he pukes in the trash can he conveniently brought along with him when he first started drinking. “‘m so smart, glad I thought of that,” he mumbles. “But, Dean, he said I never make the sacrifice play ‘nymore. But I’m gonna this time,” he says, suddenly bright with certainty. “I swear, I’m gonna make it right, I’m gonna— I’m gonna find Mom, and I’m gonna bring her back, and you’re— and you can come back, right, if I get Mom you’ll come back and you, you won’t leave me here with the dreams… Dean, I— oh God—”

Sam hangs up with the heel of his palm by accident, slams his forehead on the table on his way down to puke again. The pain is sharp and sends his nausea to the back burner, leaving him kneeling on the floor, panting against a table leg. In a sudden moment of lucidity, he realizes he has to be ready for tomorrow. There’s no one around to take care of him, he’s gotta drink water, gotta sleep, gotta flush out this bad decision from his system—

In his frenzied, too-drunk attempt to make himself as ready for morning as he can be, Sam leaves his phone in the living room. He thinks of it briefly on his way to his bedroom, and figures he’ll grab it in the morning.

* * *

Things were easier a decade ago.

Not, like, logistically easier, in the sense that back then they were running on credit card scams and cheap motel rooms, and it still scares Dean to think about how little they knew only a decade ago. How unprepared they were.

But _emotionally_ speaking, things were a hell of a lot easier when Dean first picked Sam up from Stanford. Sam and Dean, looking for Dad. Easy peasy, cut ‘n’ dry family drama that somehow always ended up with everyone feeling assured that everyone else loved them, even if they couldn’t stand to be near each other. Dean hadn’t been fucking traumatized over and over again, for one thing.

“Dean,” Cas mumbles, “As ‘n angel who saw your soul in its entirety when I raised you from hell, you were definitely traumatized even in 2005.”

Dean blinks. “I seriously do not remember saying any of that shit out loud,” he says, and glares at the glass in his hand. “Why the hell did I buy tequila?”

“I like tequila.” Dean looks up from the floor at Cas, who smiles disarmingly, and chugs back another shot or two’s worth straight out of the bottle.

“Okay, don’t—” Dean grabs the tequila bottle out of Cas’s hand. “You’ve had enough.” He tries not to dwell on that terrifying Cas who was wasted and stoned and fucked out every second of every day, but considering the fact that Dean sure doesn’t know what the hell he even is anymore, that future looms closer and closer.

Cas rolls to lie on his back on the couch. “Spinny,” he says, dragging out the ‘y’ until it fades into a grin. “Dean, why’re you mad at me?”

Jesus Christ. “I—” He swallows. “Look, okay. I just… you were dead. Now you’re not. Just getting used to it, is all.” He eyes the tequila bottle, and figures his liver’s fucked already, so why the hell not. He powers back another gulp of the stuff, and grimaces at the taste.

He leans his head back against the couch, and doesn’t think about the dangerously short distance between his face and Cas’s. Blinks slow and tired, and doesn’t think much of anything at all.

Cas rolls onto his side; his breath is hot on Dean’s scalp. “I’m sorry I left you alone,” he murmurs, lips almost touching Dean’s head. Dean shivers.

“No, don’t—” Dean turns to look right at Cas, right into his eyes. Their noses are almost touching. He breathes out. “Okay, whatever. You ran into danger and got yourself killed, and I’m damn mad about it, but you— Cas, I just mean, you can’t—” He loses his words. In 2005, he had near on nobody to lose. Dad and Sam, and he was barely afloat trying to keep the two of them together, the two of them in his life. With all the people he loves now, Dean is drowning.

Crickets chirp outside as Dean swallows. In the moonlight, there’s nothing but Cas’s eyes, his mouth. His hands, too, sturdy and clean. Cas’s mouth moves, and it says, “Dean—”

Dean loses his goddamn mind.

Cas’s mouth tastes like tequila, mostly, and like copper and like electricity. Dean forgets that Cas is something more than human a lot of the time, but like this, tongue inside his mouth, in the core of him, Dean remembers.“Cas,” Dean gasps out, and thank God, thank anyone, Cas kisses him back.

“Dean,” Cas murmurs. Dean’s neck is tilted back at an awkward angle, and it’s been fifteen hours since he learned Cas was alive, and this is unreal. He’s not himself, except he’s never been more himself. “Come here.”

So Dean separates himself from Cas’s face for long enough to hoist himself up onto the couch to straddle Cas’s hips. “Cas,” he says, “holy shit, Cas—”

“It’s okay,” Cas soothes, “it’s okay, come here, Dean,” and it’s _hard_ to make himself feel safe with another man, with Cas, it takes conscious effort, which makes this better than the inexorable pull of Amara, of the Mark. Dean gets over his shit and leans down to kiss Cas again.

He’s attracted to Cas, of course he is, but Cas’s hand creeps up his stomach and a burst of panic punches through him like a bullet. Cas stills. “No,” Dean says, “no, it’s fine, c’mon—”

“Dean, we don’t have to—”

“It’s fine.” Dean leans back and in a fit of pure adrenaline, pulls his shirt off. He’s shaking and he knows it. “Whatever you want, it’s fine, it’s good.”

Cas is hesitant, and Dean hates himself for that, hates himself for fucking up the one good thing he’s got right now. “I don’t want to hurt you,” Cas says gently, and Dean doesn’t say _too fucking late, pal_.

Instead, Dean says, “You won’t,” and moves his right hand from beside Cas’s head on the armrest to Cas’s chest. “Come on,” he says softly as his autopilot takes over, looking up through his lashes the way he did two decades ago when his partners paid him cash to look pretty and young. “What do you want?”

Cas’s mouth twists like he’s about to cry, and Dean’s heart plummets. He’s blown it. He can’t breathe. “Let’s just kiss,” Cas says. “Let’s just kiss tonight. That’s enough. That’s more than enough.”

Dean kisses Cas, then, and strokes his thumb back and forth at the intersection of Cas’s ear and jaw. “You don’t want more?” he whispers, heart gradually slowing down from its pounding. He hadn’t realized how panicked he was.

“Later,” Cas says, “later. I just want you.”

Somehow that, out of everything, is what lets Dean rest his weight on Cas’s body, lets Dean moan out a little breath of pleasure without flinching when Cas’s left hand splays itself between his bare shoulder blades.

“I just want you here with me,” Cas murmurs into Dean’s mouth, as Dean’s head slows its spinning from the alcohol. He’s sunk back into the crisp sensitivity of a happy drunk; every movement of Cas’s bare chest against his sends sparks flying.

“I’m here,” Dean says, and for once he’s not thinking of anything else, of anyone else. “I’m right here.”

* * *

_Run_.

Sam clenches his fist tighter around his makeshift bandage. The extra blood or the Enochian additions made his Frankenstein ritual semi-successful, in that he’s here, but he has no idea where _here_ is.

His heart is pounding for no good reason; Sam hasn’t actually seen any threats, but there’s the creeping sense of being watched. He looks at his arm and sees goosebumps.

The forest is silent. The trees are moving in the wind, he can see them, but there’s no sound; nothing rustles, nothing cracks, nothing crunches, nothing whistles. Sam clears his throat, just to make sure he can still hear. The sound is gunshot-loud.

Sam’s heart rate climbs. He looks over his shoulder, and braces himself before looking ahead of him. There’s nothing. There’s nothing at all, nothing but this dead forest and its too-quiet trees and the clearings, spaced almost evenly.

It’s only been ten minutes according to his watch, the one Sam picked because it was as analog as analog could be, and therefore less likely to get screwed with during interdimensional travel. There’s still no real guarantee of anything like accuracy. Sam has no idea how long he’s been here.

The clearings. Sam tries to focus on the clearings through the haze of terror in its purest form. He’s been pared down to nothing, to clean edges and bright-eyed prey instinct. The clearings, right.

He looks both ways before entering one. There’s a pond in the middle, almost a perfect circle. He steps closer, and hears something. Steps closer. That’s Mom’s voice.

_No, I don’t believe this wood is a world at all. I think it’s just a sort of in-between place_ , comes unbidden into Sam’s mind. It takes him a moment to place it. _The Magician’s Nephew_. C.S. Lewis.

Sam pales as he realizes what’s happening. He passed maybe five, six of these ponds. These worlds. He didn’t mark where he came in. Eyes darting back and forth, on the lookout for as yet nonexistent predators, Sam creeps back to the trail he’d been following, and sees a bright light in the direction he came from. That must be the portal he created.

Anything could get through there out into his world, he realizes suddenly. He didn’t think this through. He didn’t think this through at all. God _damn_ it, he just gets himself in these situations and it’s foolish and destructive and always, always ends up with consequences for other innocent people.

He hasn’t seen anything. Maybe it’ll be okay. Maybe the portal will close and he won’t have to worry about that. He has a mission.

Maybe this clearing in particular drew him in because it’s the one he’s looking for. Maybe everything’s going to work out okay. He amped up the ritual for maximum safety, after all.

Sam walks back to the circular pond. _Hey!_ Mary’s voice yells, angrily, faint like a noise through a window from across the street.

Sam holds his breath, and steps in.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this whole story spiralled way out of control hahahah aaaaaa [screams]. this chapter’s kind of an interlude and hopefully i can get us back on track to a concise main story next chapter :) note the added chapter! this baby is now definitely going to be at least six chapters long.
> 
> ALSO: added warnings for homophobia (not just the baseline internalized stuff dean constantly has to work through) & some references to underage sex work.

“No, John,” Mary’s saying frustratedly, “look—” She cuts herself off for a second, and then continues, “Yes, all right, but I get dinner tonight, okay? I thought we were over this.” She sighs. “All right. Bye, John.”

Sam looks around. He’s in a bathroom. The walls are pale blue, there’s a mirror in front of him, and there’s a painting of that in between place just above the toilet to his left. He touches it, and it seems to be just that: a painting. Shit.

He walks out of the bathroom, and there’s a small room — a living room, with a TV and a couch — and then a doorway into a dining room, where he can see Mary with a phone in her hand.

“Mom?” he asks, walking up to her.

“Sam,” she says, smiling, easy like it hasn’t been since she got back in Sam’s universe. She’s older, now, as old as she would’ve been if she’d made it through the fire — she must be past sixty now. Jesus. “Your dad. Trying to get you two every chance he can get, probably ‘cause he missed so much when you were kids.”

“Right.” Sam has no idea what to do here.

Mary shakes her head. “Enough of that. Y’know, I thought we were done with screaming at each other on the phone when I signed the divorce papers.” She’s laughing, like it’s an old joke, and Sam smiles weakly in response. Dad’s alive too, in this world, and he’s… well. All right then.

She looks him up and down, and Sam feels a sudden urge to hang his head. “Sam, honey,” she says, “you look so thin! Do I have to ask your wife if you’ve been feeding yourself?”

Sam looks at his left hand, and sure enough, there’s a damn ring on his fourth finger. “No, uh,” he tries to make something up that’ll seem plausible, “I’m just stressed, that’s all. You know how it is.”

Mary smiles. “Well, I’m no lawyer, but I do know a thing or two about losing sleep.” She grins at Sam. “Can you get the drinks? My right arm, it’s not what it used to be.”

“Sure thing,” he says, and escapes to the kitchen. Holy shit. How is he supposed to get out of this one?

He finds the drinks easy enough, and also sees Dean letting himself in the front door. "Hey, Dean,” he says, because that seems like it’ll always be a constant, him and Dean.

Sure enough, Dean grins, and replies, “Hey, kiddo.” Sam carries the two pitchers to the table while Mom tells Dean to wipe off his damn shoes before tracking mud all over the place. They must’ve just had a rainstorm; Dean’s soaked.

“So,” Dean says quietly, “just wanted to ask, Sam… you thought about it?”

Sam frowns. Shit. “Uh…” He winces. This is gonna be awkward no matter how you slice it. “Refresh my memory?”

Dean rolls his eyes. “Jesus, dude, I’m beggin’ here, don’t make me—”

“No, that’s not what I mean, I just—” Sam improvises. “Just need more details, is all, before I can, uh, decide, y’know?”

Dean eyes him suspiciously, but says, “Well, all right. Bobby was thinking of selling his auto shop anyway, so I figure if I can talk him down to maybe seventy-five K for the whole thing, and add on a couple figures here and there for legal and stuff… well, I mean, you’re the smart one.” And that breaks Sam’s heart, the way Dean shrugs off his own plans, the way he downplays himself, and then he continues: “Look, I know you guys are thinking of starting a family an’ all that stuff, and you know I wouldn’t ask if I had any other choice, Sammy. But I mean, if you could lend me thirty grand, and I could try to get the rest off the bank… it’d really make a difference, little bro.”

Sam’s staggered at this Dean who’s throwing around numbers like 30 grand as though they’re, if not nothing, at least feasible. He thinks about the median salary for a lawyer, which is over a hundred thousand dollars. He wants to say yes, but doesn’t want to land this world’s Sam, wherever the hell he is, in hot water. “Uh… okay, Dean, I’ll think on it—”

“Man, I—” Dean sighs. “Look, Bobby’s gonna sell the place next week, whether it’s to me or someone else, okay? I can’t keep asking him to put it off just ‘cause we half grew up with the guy, y’know?”

Sam swallows. “Totally,” he says, feeling shitty even as he says it, “I totally get that, Dean, just gimme a couple more days to talk it through, y’know?”

Dean’s mouth twitches, for a moment, before it settles into an anemic smile. Sam wonders if this universe’s Sam can see through it as easily as he can. “Sure,” he says. “Yeah, of course, it’s—” He swallows.

“Dean—”

“Look.” Dean leans in, voice low. “I put you through college, and this pretty face ain’t the moneymaker it was when I was twenty, all right? I’m not asking for charity here, man, I’m asking for a damn loan because I wanna make something out of my life after throwing away more’n half a decade of it so you could forget about this white trash family and become a hotshot lawyer. It ain’t much, Sammy, not to you.”

Sam doesn’t know the context, doesn’t know if this Dean’s used to putting on the guilt trips and this Sam is used to shrugging them off, but that gut punch drops him like a stone. “I— I know,” he says, because if nothing else, he knows that Dean’s used to giving everything up for Sam. Of all the things to be consistent across universes, that’s the saddest damn one.

Dean closes his eyes. “Never mind,” he says, and Sam’s only just processing what it might’ve meant for Dean’s twenty year old face to have been a moneymaker. “Look, just— at least talk about it with Jess, okay?” And Dean escapes to the dining room, where Mom’s been pretending not to hear them.

Jess. Fuck, of course it’s Jess. It’ll always be Jess, no matter how absurd it seems to Sam now, because in this world Sam and Jess grew into each other; Sam’s not a thirty-three year old perving on his early twenties college sweetheart. Jess made it past thirty, too.

Sam goes back out to the dinner table with plates in hand. Mom’s struggling to put a full pot on the table, and Sam leans over to help her, while Dean watches from the edge of the dining room, too still.

The doorbell rings before Sam can think about how to escape. He’ll need to make up an excuse soon, but for now, he answers the door.

And of course, of course, it’s Jess.

“H-hey,” Sam stutters, and Jess steps in and kisses him, casual and everyday, the way their kisses only got to be for about two months before she died. She’s so beautiful, tiny smile lines around her eyes and hair a darker blonde, and she’s got a little more weight to her cheeks and her arms. She’s made it. Sam turns away quickly so she doesn’t see him cry, but has to look back because he gets to have this. In some twisted way, in a different world, he gets this moment, seeing Jess grown happy into her thirties.

“Jess!” Mom says, and goes over to hug her, and that’s good, too.

She seems to be the last one they were waiting on, and so they sit down. This dinner is apparently to celebrate Sam and Jess’s fifth anniversary — he’d asked her to marry him when he was twenty four, but they’d kept the relationship under wraps and only gotten around to actually doing the whole marriage thing once both of them were established in their respective positions at their law firm. No one wanted to risk Sam being accused of sleeping with the boss for a promotion — or at least, that’s what Sam’s inferred.

They make more small talk, Sam awkwardly stumbling around the conversation and trying to be as unobtrusive as possible. Finally, Jess asks the question Sam’s been dying to: “What about you, Dean? Have you found anyone?”

Dean swallows, and looks at the three of them. He says, “You know I’m not really the settling down type,” but it wears thin when Sam sees the way his thirty-seven year old brother takes a long, healthy swig of beer right afterwards.

Jess’s mouth thins, and she looks back down to her plate. Mom says, “Dean, honey, we just want you to be happy,” something straight out of a sitcom.

Dean nods jerkily, and says, after he chugs down the rest of his beer, “Actually, I— I gotta tell you something.”

Sam stops eating, and notices Jess doing the same. Mom keeps going through her food, determinedly ignoring the sudden silence. Dean swallows. “I—” He clears his throat. “I have been seeing someone, actually.”

No one says anything. Finally, Sam tries, “That’s great, Dean.”

Jess nods, like she just needed Sam to push her into action. “Yeah,” she says, “that’s awesome! Who is it, Dean?”

Dean looks straight at Mom, and says, “It’s…” He breathes in. “You remember Cas, right, Mom?”

You could hear a pin drop. Mary says nothing, just keeps eating. Dean’s mouth trembles, and after a few moments, he looks at Sam.

Sam’s enraged, suddenly, at this stupid family that keeps letting this Dean — this different, vulnerable, _open_ brother of his — down. “That’s great,” he says loudly, trying to project sincerity as best as he can. “I mean it, man. That’s really great.”

Dean swallows. He asks, quietly, “You think so?”

“Yeah.” No hesitation. He can’t imagine that this world’s Sam is so disgustingly self-centered that he wouldn’t understand that what Dean’s given him — what Dean’s just willingly shared with them — is a goddamn miracle. “Absolutely.”

Sam looks over at Jess, who’s stunned. “I never would’ve guessed,” she says, and then covers her mouth with her hands. “Oh God, I’m sorry,” she mumbles, only taking her hands off afterwards. “I’m sorry, that was so rude. Of course it’s great, Dean, Cas is lovely. I only met him once, but he seemed so nice. You two would be— sorry, I mean — I just know you two are great together.”

It’s stumbling and awkward, exactly the way Sam never would’ve imagined Jess to be, but Dean smiles at the attempt. “Thanks, Jess,” he says softly, and Mary hasn’t said a word.

They eat for a moment, until Sam can’t take it anymore. “Mom?” he asks, and Dean flinches.

“It’s fine,” Dean says, “never mind. I shouldn’t have brought it up.” He chews his food mechanically, and Sam loses his appetite.

“Mom, I think you should say something,” and maybe it’s a holdover from his own universe where it seemed like Mom was doing everything in her power to hurt Dean as much as possible, but Sam can’t imagine a single good reason for Mary’s silence.

Mary clears her throat. She puts down her cutlery. “Dean,” she says, voice shaking, and Dean closes his eyes. She looks at him, and says, voice hard as steel now, “Open your eyes, boy.”

It sounds so much like John that Sam flinches. Dean looks like he’s facing a firing squad.

Mary just sighs. After a long moment, eyes locked on Dean’s, she says, “I have nothing to say to you, Dean. This isn’t how I raised you.”

She turns back to her plate. Dean nods, once, and Sam can see the tears welling up in his eyes. Jesus Christ. Jesus _Christ_. Dean’s chin quivers, and he says, wetly, “Excuse me.”

“You’re excused,” Mary says quietly, and doesn’t watch as Dean pushes himself away from the table and stalks out the back door, rubbing at his eyes with the back of his hand.

Sam says, “Mom—”

“You didn’t have it easy, growin’ up,” Mom starts. Jess holds his hand under the table. “I had a tough time raisin’ you on my own, with John gone most of the time, and then all the time once we finalized the divorce. Plus, I’m not much of a prayin’ woman, and you boys know that. But I know right from wrong, and I thought— I thought that even though I mightn’t have done as good as I shoulda, I raised you boys to know it too.”

Sam swallows. “There’s nothing wrong with who Dean is.”

“Just ‘cause you went to some fancy California college doesn’t mean you get to tell me what the rules are in my home,” Mary snaps fiercely. Sam would be impressed, if he wasn’t so appalled. She sighs, and her mouth trembles. “Sam, I saw what AIDS did firsthand. I read about the hurt that those men were getting, and I— I didn’t want that for my boys.” She shakes her head. “It ain’t right, and it’ll always hurt you, that lifestyle. I don’t want Dean making a rash decision because of some hippie dippie freak he met God knows where.”

“It’s 2017,” Sam says, and no one contradicts him, so that’s good. He repeats it. “It’s 2017, Mom, and being afraid your kid’s going to get hurt by someone else is no good reason to hurt him first.” Mary doesn’t say anything, and Jess gives him a slight nod. He says, “Excuse me,” and doesn’t wait to be excused.

He can hear Jess helping Mary put away the dishes and pack away the leftovers as he walks out to the back porch. “I’m sorry you had to hear that,” Sam says, joining Dean at the porch railing.

Dean nods. “Who’d’a thought it’d be you outta everyone standing up for me in there,” he says.

Sam doesn’t know what reputation he has in this world, but, however misplaced and inconsequential the hurt is, it _does_ hurt that Dean thought he wouldn’t stand up for him. It makes Sam wonder if his world’s Dean is the same — about the Cas thing, and about what he expects from Sam.

“I don’t know if you heard her logic, but I think she just doesn’t want you to get hurt,” Sam says. “It’s not enough, and it doesn’t— it doesn’t justify what she said to you, but I think you can work it out with her, if you want to.”

“Yeah.” Dean sighs. “Of course I want to, Sam. I’m not about to throw away my own mother because I got all butthurt over how she reacted to who I’m sleeping with, jeez.”

What the fuck. Sam wonders how Dean got this self-loathing martyr complex even without Mom’s death. It’s almost impressive.

Dean says, “I should probably go in and talk to her, right?”

“If you want to,” Sam says, because it has to be said.

Dean just sighs, like he expected that from Sam but it’s so naive as to be unreasonable, and walks back in.

Sam looks out over the backyard. Funny enough — and he hadn’t noticed it before, despite facing the window to the backyard during dinner, but — it looks almost like the clearing. There’s a pond, at least, and as Sam descends from the porch to the backyard, there seem to be more trees than he expected, and when he steps foot into the pond—

It’s the deep, dark silence that amps up his adrenaline. Sam looks around, and he’s in that forest, dead and watchful all at once.

He wraps his hand around the herbs tied to a grounding stone in his pocket, and continues his search.

* * *

Dean wakes up to mid-morning sunlight with an arm over his body. He is being _spooned_. This is frankly humiliating, and besides, if Dean were to engage in spooning, he would definitely be the spooner, not the spoonee. Cas mumbles something behind him, pulls him in closer, and Dean softens.

Okay, so he’s a sucker for a good lookin’ guy whose incredibly traumatic death made Dean realize how much time they’d wasted. Sue him.

Maybe he’s still too drunk to feel shitty about it, or maybe he’s actually worked through his shit (only somewhat inconceivable), but being in bed with another man (or close enough, Dean guesses) knowing that the night before they stumbled from the couch while making out, is kind of… fine. Like, if either of his parents walked in right now he might have to shoot himself, but y’know. Fine.

He pushes himself out of Cas’s embrace to go piss, and stops for a moment to take in Cas in bed. Jesus. He never felt anything like this with anyone but Lisa; a couple months in and he’d just stopped to look at her in the morning sometimes, breath caught in his throat at the fact that this was his life, his desperate gratitude tempered by grief and all tied up in how beautiful she was in the early morning sun. Now — and maybe it’s selfish, with the amount of loss that’s hit the hunting community because of them, but — he’s basking in it without complication, getting Cas back, getting this chance because he was just buzzed enough to keep out of his own way.

Dean sighs. It’s all probably gonna go to hell in a few hours even if he can’t quite imagine how yet, but shit, he just wants to keep this. Just for once he wants to have someone stay because they want to, because it’s sunny and warm in this room and they have nowhere else they’d rather be.

He pads out of the bedroom to the kitchen. He did the dishes after dinner but they left out the glasses from before they started taking swigs straight outta the bottle. Dean starts clearing them up, glasses in the sink and bottle in the trash, and gets started on breakfast. There’s no coffee maker, so he starts boiling water for tea, which he tells himself is just because instant coffee tastes like shit. Maybe he’ll poach some eggs, use the ham he picked up yesterday to make something close to eggs benedict. There’s nothing for hollandaise, but he figures Cas won’t mind too much.

The kitchen’s nice, which he hadn’t noticed. Felt like yesterday he had eyes only for Cas and the bleak empty plains sky, which through the window looks a little warmer than it did before. That’s bullshit, obviously, sappy shit he never fell for, but here he is, soothed by sunlight that just yesterday felt like a brand on him.

There’s two eggs for each of them, because Dean splurged and got an 18-pack of eggs instead of the usual dozen, and he even fries up some taters to go alongside the English muffins and ham. He almost stops in the middle of it, hating the domesticity, but shakes himself out of it. He’s allowed to have good things and he’s allowed to dote on Cas today. He’ll think about the layers of betrayal and the looming consequences of Cas’s stupid fucking decisions another time.

Cas stumbles into the kitchen just as the kettle starts wailing, and walks over to kiss Dean’s shoulder before slumping down into a seat. Dean hides a smile, and releases tension he didn’t even realize he’d been carrying. “Made you breakfast,” he says, and sets the plate in front of Cas with a loud and graceless clatter to feel less like a goddamn housewife.

Cas smiles. “Thank you, Dean,” he says, serious like he always is, like Dean deserves that kind of attention, and starts eating. Dean swallows, and does the same. They don’t talk, except that Cas stops eating once or twice or four times to compliment Dean’s cooking and Dean blushes furiously every single time as he grunts variations on _thanks man_. Their feet touch under the table, and Cas just smiles, and presses his foot harder against Dean’s.

“You got anything on the go for today?” Dean asks, once they’ve put the dishes back in the sink and Dean’s made the executive decision not to wash them until later. Dean plans on casing the dead waiter’s old apartment tonight, but there haven’t been any deaths since that first one so he’s not exactly feeling any urgency. They’re sitting outside cleaning weapons (well, Dean’s cleaning his guns and whetting his blades while Cas watches) like a coupla old fogies about to tell some kids to get off their lawn.

Cas shakes his head. They stay there, quiet, until the sun’s just past overhead and Dean figures it must be around one. He finishes up with the last machete and, with Cas’s help, hauls it all over to his trunk. He looks for his watch, realizes he must’ve dumped it somewhere in the cabin last night, and anyway, these days he mostly just checks his phone for the time.

“You know what time it is?” he asks.

“I’m gonna guess… 12:58.” Cas quirks a smile, and Dean smiles back, to hide the creeping fear that maybe Cas actually was taking a wild guess, that he’s losing his powers and this is the first sign. They trudge inside, and Dean finally finds his phone between the couch cushions. 

It’s one on the dot by the time he finds it, and he breathes out a sigh of relief that’s maybe undeserved. He’s also got three texts and a voicemail. He debates leaving them for later — today’s his _day_ , okay, his one day to feel like a person — but then responsibility strikes him in the gut again, and he unlocks his phone.

“Messages from Sam?” Cas asks, not exactly gentle but judgment free, at least, and Dean mm-hm’s his answer.

Sam, 12:02 AM: **ddea n god im drun k i;m ples**

Voicemail Inbox, 12:55 AM: **You have one (1) new message.**

Sam, 8:45 AM: **I should’ve told you about this before and I’m sorry. I got a lead on Mom and I’m going to try to go to that other universe today. It has to happen now - there’s a short window of time when it’s safest. I didn’t know how to tell you and I didn’t want you to stop me. Don’t redo the ritual to try and come after me, okay? I’ll be back with Mom. I will be.**

Sam, 8:46 AM: **I think I left you a drunk voicemail. Feel free to ignore it if you want. See you soon. also sorry about the drunk text**

Shit. Shit. Jesus Christ, what the hell has his brother been up to? “Cas, we gotta go,” Dean says, packing his shit up. He clicks Sam’s name and holds the phone to his ear as it dials through. _Come on come on come on_ , he mutters, and swears violently when he gets Sam’s voicemail before the line rings even once.

He takes a night off, fuck, he’s not supposed to— he’s not _allowed_ to take a night off. This is how people get killed on his watch. He hates abandoning cases midway through, but this podunk town can wait for some other hunters to investigate.

“Is everything all right?” Fortunately, Cas jumps into action despite his confusion, packing up whatever belongings he has (he wasn’t settled in, Dean thinks, this wasn’t permanent, and he’s not sure what he feels about that) and throwing them in the car with Dean.

They’re on the road in ten minutes flat, Dean too distracted to even turn on the radio. After a few minutes, Cas clears his throat.

“What?” Dean snaps, fight or flight mode getting the best of him.

“Sorry,” Cas says, and turns to look out the window. Somehow that makes him feel worse than the sniping they usually do — usually did —  _fuck_ — when they get on each other’s nerves.

Dean breathes out. A mile passes beneath them. Dean grits his teeth. “What were you gonna say, Cas,” he tries, hoping it’s close enough to an apology.

Cas lets it pass. “Can you tell me what’s going on with Sam?”

Dean laughs, almost, but he’s unamused. “Right, shit, I forgot to tell you. Mom— after the night you—” He swallows. “Anyway, Mom ended up in that other world with Lucifer, and Sam left me a voicemail and texted me saying he was gonna do some ritual this morning to get to her. He already did it.” They drive for a few more minutes, calm until Dean slams his hand against the steering wheel. “God _damn_ it, Cas. Why the hell didn’t he tell me about this earlier?”

Cas doesn’t say anything, just sits quietly with his arm leaning against the window.

Dean speeds up, edging up to about 85, 90 miles an hour. Finally he hits the tape deck and lets Bad Company fill up the car.

About twenty minutes in, Cas says something. It’s obvious he said it quiet so Dean could pretend he didn’t hear it, but Dean’s had enough of letting things lie. That’s how people he loves end up doing stupid shit like this.

“What, Cas?” He even turns down the music so Cas has no excuse.

Cas says, “I didn’t mean to pry,” uh, yeah, right, “but I thought Sam left a voicemail as well. Was it… about the ritual?”

Right. The voicemail. The drunk voicemail Sam told him to ignore.

Dean lets it rest for a moment, and then admits, maybe too honest for the two of them, “I’m scared to listen to it.”

Cas nods, as if that makes any kind of sense to an angel. Maybe it does. Maybe it makes sense to Cas, who’s more human than angel no matter what his power levels look like. “I only offer because I think it might help, and I won’t be angry if you say no,” Cas says, “but we could listen to it together.”

Dean’s knee-jerk reaction is no, of course he doesn’t want to do that. They don’t share that shit outside the family, outside the two of them, and he doesn’t want Cas to see the way he reacts to the rough truths Sam’s sure to have spilled in his voicemail. And, honestly, he doesn’t want Cas to hear Sam’s drunken ramblings and judge him; Sam rarely gets drunk, and he never gets drunk alone like Dean does, and Dean’s afraid of the idea of Sam doing that. Sam’s goddamn lucky he didn’t pass out and choke on his own vomit.

But they’re doing this thing, him and Cas, which means that Cas is probably gonna hear about the voicemail anyway. Besides, it might have info about the shit Sam’s got himself into, and Dean’s not gonna stop driving and kick Cas outta the car so he can listen to Sam’s message in private.

“Yeah, okay.” Dean fumbles for the phone — there aren’t any other cars on the road, but still, one is too many car crashes to be in and he’s paranoid as fuck — and keys in his password, then hands it to Cas. “Play it.”

Cas holds his phone like it’s the goddamn Hope Diamond. “Are you certain, Dean?”

“ _Yes_ , Cas, just play the damn thing!”

Cas dials the voicemail number, and puts it on speaker. Dean tells Cas his password, and Cas types it in dutifully.

_You have one unheard message. To check unheard messages, press one one._

Cas looks over at Dean, who nods. He sees Cas press 1, and then 1 again.

_Oh shit_ , Sam slurs, and Dean can already tell he’s going to hate this.

They listen in silence as Sam promises Dean he’s going to make the sacrifice play, going to get Mom back; they listen as Sam pukes at the mention of Lucifer. Dean listens, throat tight, as Sam chokes out, _Dean, I— oh God_ — and it cuts off.

Cas doesn’t speak as the voicemail lady says _End of unheard messages. To delete this message, press seven. To save it, press nine. To disconnect, press star. To repeat your options, press one._

“Save it,” Dean grits out. He turns his head to watch as Cas presses 9, and then the asterisk. He locks the phone, and puts it gently back in the unused ashtray.

Dean lets his foot lean into the gas pedal harder and speeds down the highway.

Eventually, Cas says, “Dean—”

“Don’t.” His fingers tighten around the steering wheel. “We get back and we bring Sam home. End of story.”

He tries not to hear accusation in Sam’s voice saying _you can come back, right_ , tries not to dwell on the fact that he made the wrong fucking decision, leaving him alone in the bunker. He tries not to feel like he’s choosing Cas over Sam, tries not to feel like he’s always making the choice that puts Sam on the sidelines.

“Yes, of course,” Cas says. They keep on driving, and there isn’t much to say after that.

* * *

The last two worlds were weird, and Sam ditched them as quickly as he could — there was one where they were all coffee shop employees and for some reason Zachariah was their grumpy yet semi-likeable boss, and another one where Sam went darkside with Azazel ten years ago and led the demon army to rise against the human world. Sam’s not sure which one was worse.

Sam’s starting to get a feel for the different worlds; it’s subtle, but the clearings look different. He’s been skipping the ones that look like they have grass, however crisp and dry, actively growing around the water, aiming instead for the cracked, dead-for-decades trees. It’s helpful that the worst universes are the ones that look apocalyptic from the outside.

The stone in his pocket seems to burn uncomfortably hot when he goes in the wrong direction, and he supposes that makes sense, if he’s aiming for Lucifer. It’s not something he built into the spell, but he added various sigils for accuracy and guidance, so it’s not too far fetched. At the very least, there are definite temperature changes and he’s decided to go with the _pain = bad_ interpretation.

There’s one pond that looks like it has no trees around it, they’re so withered and broken. Half of them seem to have fallen. It might not be the right universe, but then again, it very well might be; Sam steps in.

The lights are out.

“You were supposed to say yes,” and the person in front of him is Raphael; Sam can tell from the neon electric wings and the thunder that rolls outside. “You imbecile! You were meant to say yes!”

Sam’s not sure what the deal is, but he’s tied to a chair, so on instinct, he says, “Screw you.”

Raphael leans in close, before backing away. Raphael sighs. “This wrath, boy… When last Michael was here, he had purpose. Direction. Now…”

Sam swallows. He notices the group of dead bodies littered around the room. “Where am I?”

Raphael doesn’t seem to notice — or care — that this Sam isn’t nearly as well informed as he presumably should be. Raphael just responds, “You’re in one of your Men of Letters bunkers, or what’s left of it. Michael is coming soon.”

Sam realizes— “Wait, are we… working together?”

“I’d never work with a traitor like you,” Raphael spits. “But… we need you to say yes.” Suddenly, Sam can see the fear in Raphael, ill-suited to Raphael’s angelic form. The emotion sits like a leash on a great white shark. “Michael is so angry,” Raphael says, hushed. “So, so angry.”

Sam swallows. “I—”

“He’s here.” Raphael pulls out an angel blade.

“You think that’ll do any good?”

Raphael laughs. “Hardly. If Michael refuses to let me leave, I’ll end myself.” Raphael turns to Sam. “You know… perhaps, you have been more cooperative than you needed to be.” Then, Raphael offers him a small smile, as though the angel has just learned what a smile is. “Would you like me to kill you as well?”

Sam realizes the magnitude of that offer — that in doing so Raphael might lose precious seconds, seconds that might be needed to end the angel’s own life painlessly. It’s almost kind. “No, thank you,” Sam says hoarsely. What the hell is happening in this world?

Suddenly, the room starts to shake, and just as suddenly, it all falls silent. Raphael swallows, and although it’s not meant for Sam, he watches as Raphael mouths a prayer. The door opens, and in walks—

In walks Dean.

Christ. _Christ_.

“Raphael,” Dean —  _Michael_ — intones quietly, and with a flick of his wrist, Raphael is dead on the ground, wings charred into the floor. The tip of Raphael’s left wing just overlaps Sam’s foot, and he resists the urge to shake off the soot mark.

“Samuel,” Michael, Michael wearing Dean’s body, says. “I am surprised you’ve lasted this long.”

Feeling déjà vu, Sam says, “Screw you.”

“Well.” Michael — Dean — unties Sam, and his calculated, technical movements are so different from Dean that Sam aches. “You know, your brother couldn’t wait to say yes to me, once Zachariah showed him what would happen if Lucifer was left to run amok. That was… why, that was almost nine years ago.”

“Why are you doing this?” Sam asks, and it’s the carnage, the destruction, but it’s also the fact that Michael’s here and Lucifer obviously isn’t.

“Didn’t Raphael tell you?” Michael stalks forward, and Sam stumbles backwards, until Dean’s hands are on his shoulders, pinning him to the wall. “I’m… oh, Samuel,” Michael breathes, “I’m just so _angry_.”

“So you throw a hissy fit? Even when the person you’re really mad at isn’t here to take the blows?”

“He was supposed to be!” Michael screams. “It was supposed to be me and my brother, but it’s just… _you_.” Michael breathes, and his voice becomes low and deadly. “It’s just you, you hairless apes and your self-martyring glory and your lack of faith in anything but yourselves. Even the holiest of you all is just a swine pretending to be a king.”

Sam, ready to find the nearest puddle and jump into it, says, “And thank God for that,” punches Michael right in his face, and uses Michael’s honest shock to run out into the lightning storm.

Michael’s in front of him, but Sam’s already at a lake’s edge, and it’s not as clear cut as the other times, but Sam jumps in, and walks out into that terrifying and empty forest.

He clutches the talisman tighter, and keeps on searching.

* * *

_“You have one job, Dean. What is it?”_

_Dean looks at his shoes. “Watch out for Sammy.”_

_Dad slaps him, broad palm bigger than Dean’s cheek, right across the face. “You look at me when I’m talking to you, boy. What’s your job?”_

_Dean keeps his focus just above Dad’s eyes, so he doesn’t have to see the anger in them. Hoarse, he chokes out, “Watch out for Sammy.”_

_Dad leans back. He sighs, and his pure and desperate exhaustion is somehow worse to behold than his fury. “I need you, Dean,” he says, and Dean swallows. “I need you to be here, lookin’ out for your brother, all right? I can’t be here to protect him every time.”_

_“I know, Dad.” Dean blinks, and hopes — prays — that he’s not crying. That’s the last thing he needs right now. “I’m sorry.”_

_Dad closes his eyes. “You left your brother alone, and he almost got fed on by a shtriga,” he says, like Dean needs the reminder. Dean knows what he did. “He could’ve died, Dean. Your brother could’ve been killed. On your watch.”_

_Dean nods. “I’m sorry,” he whispers, but it’s not enough._

_“Sorry doesn’t get your little brother undead, Dean,” Dad says. He stands up, and reaches for Dean; when Dean flinches, though, Dad takes his hand back, and Dean recognizes that as another mistake he’s made. “Don’t you forget what happened tonight, okay?”_

_Dean looks his dad straight in the eyes. “Yes, sir.”_

_Dad nods. His smile looks sad, and Dean can’t help but feel responsible. “That’s good,” he says quietly. “That’s good, Dean.” He walks to his duffel, leaving Dean to crawl shamefaced into the other bed where Sam — his whole world, his whole reason for being — is already asleep._

_“I’m sorry, Sammy,” Dean whispers, and Sam, asleep, rolls just a bit further away from Dean._

Dean blinks himself out of the memory, realizes he’s been cruising at a hundred miles an hour down a stretch of highway with oncoming traffic separated by nothing more than a yellow line, and figures that’s a little too unsafe even for him. He eases off the gas, and focuses on the road ahead.

He remembers the years after that, when Sam was hungry and tired and cold and Dean tried his damn best to fix it. He remembers living off school lunches so Sam could have Cap’n Crunch for breakfast. He remembers when he couldn’t find honest work and was still too young to get into a bar to hustle pool, and they were in a city big enough for him to cock his hips and find a nice old man to pay him enough for their motel room.

Looking back twenty years later, of course it was wrong for a kid to be put in that position. He’d always thought it was his job, his purpose, and it still is, of course it is, but Dean’s— Dean’s tired. Dean’s tired of not being good enough, of not sacrificing enough, of sacrificing too much. He sees Cas napping in the passenger seat, and he can’t help the way he thinks, _I’d cut out my own heart for you_.

That doesn’t help anyone, he thinks bitterly. It doesn’t help anyone when he throws himself in front of bullets, but then again, he’s got nothing more than his body left to give. After all, his soul’s twisted and flayed and probably drips demonic corruption like blood; he wonders what Cas sees in him.

Dean knew this was going to turn sour this morning, but he thought he’d have more time; he thought there might be something worth keeping here, but all Dean does is make the wrong calls and send the people closest to him running for the hills. Sam’s the one launching himself headlong into danger like he’s got something — God knows what at this point — to atone for, and Cas has practically been trying to get away from Dean ever since they met — and when he hasn’t, well, look how that’s turned out. Dean looks over at Cas, and can only see the empty space he’ll inevitably leave behind.

They’ll be at the bunker in twenty minutes. Dean ups the volume until Cas startles awake. “Almost there, sweetheart,” Dean bites, and ignores the way his voice catches over the ( _joking_ , okay) endearment.

Cas nods, and doesn’t reply. _Good lovin’ gone bad, it’s gone I say_ —

Dean switches to the radio.

* * *

It’s like trying to find a needle in a forty acre stack of needles, but Sam’s getting close; the stone’s getting colder, and when he finds a small clearing with a patch of wilted trees — it’s not the healthiest grouping he’s come across, but it isn’t the worst either — the stone’s ice cold.

He stops touching it, keeps his hand hovering above it in his pocket, because the cold hurts more than a burn ever could. He steps into the small, stagnant pool of water.

She’s right there in front of him. He’s not sure what kind of luck that is — if it’s Rhiannon sending him guidance from his homeworld (and shit, what the fuck are their lives) or just sheer coincidence — but that’s Mom, young and short-haired and with what looks like a scrap of cloth wrapped around a missing pinky finger.

“Mom?” he breathes, and she turns to look at him.

She smiles. They’ve both made the same mistakes — trusting the wrong people, getting too cynical too fast — and maybe that makes their relationship more dangerous than her relationship with Dean, but it’s _theirs_. That’s his mom, really _his_ , and he’s found her. “Sam,” she says, and he pulls her in for a hug.

They’re here. Sam pulled a stupid fucking move, and for once in his godforsaken life, it worked the way it was supposed to.

“Let’s get the hell outta here,” Mom says.

“Wait.” Sam says, “I mean, I’ll show you how, but first — we gotta ice the devil.”

Mom looks at him, and he knows she wants to go home, but she nods. He’s not leaving anything to chance; Sam’s only been waiting seven years for this. Lucifer’s dying tonight.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so i'm almost done season 6 in my ridiculous supernatural marathon of doom. i forgot how much i love lisa & ben!!! i've come to realize that s6 was not as terrible as i remembered it to be! this whole experience is really surreal! anyway, totally unrelated to s6, please take this chapter as a representation of my gratitude for your comments & kudos, friends. we're entering not-yet-written territory, but hopefully i can get it all wrapped up in one more chapter (maybe two).

Book one is a bust. Book two is a bust. Book thirty-seven is, unsurprisingly, a goddamn bust. “What the _hell_ , Cas,” Dean spits. His fingers shake. “Goddammit, what the hell are we supposed to do?”

Cas flips through Sam’s notes, calm as anything. It makes Dean mad. “His notes are disorganized,” Cas remarks mildly. “It will take time to sort through them and determine which ritual he used.”

“We don’t _have_ time. For all we know, Sam didn’t even make it through to the other side. Damn it.” He can’t resist, then, sweeping his hands over the whole mess of useless volumes, knocking a lamp along with ‘em down to the floor. “Damn it!”

“Dean,” Cas says, putting down the notes he has in his hands, “we’ll find him.” He walks over to Dean, puts his hand on his shoulder, and Dean shrugs him off.

“Don’t touch me,” Dean says. “Don’t— just keep looking.” He tries to keep his temper in check, walks over to look at the scorched remains of whatever ingredients Sam used for his spell. “Shit, Sammy,” he whispers. “What the hell were you thinking?”

He hears Cas paging through Sam’s chicken scratch behind him. If he hadn’t been making time with Cas— if he’d paid attention to Sam earlier instead of abandoning him— if he’d stopped checking out of his own goddamn life long enough to notice Sam was getting himself caught up in this kind of shit—

“You got any angel mojo can help, Cas?” He means it as an earnest question, at first. Then he thinks, what the hell was the _point_ of this, of finding Cas, of Cas coming back, if he can’t even help. What’s the point of any of it, if they can’t even help.

“Dean, I—” It sounds like the lead up to something big, so Dean turns around. Cas sighs. “I don’t know what my powers are at this point. The only angels powerful enough to cross universes are archangels, and I don’t even know if I’m an angel at all anymore.”

Dean’s breath catches. Cas, cut off from Heaven because of Dean. Cas, powerless and human. Cas, sleeping in the back closet of a Gas’n’Sip because Dean’s a piece of shit. Damn it. “When the hell were you gonna tell me that, Cas?” It’s all he can think of, suddenly, Cas weak and defenseless and _human_. And Dean standing upright in the crumbling remains of Sam and Cas’s lives.

“I didn’t realize it was your business what I was,” Cas snaps, and turns away to read more of Sam’s notes. Dean breathes. It is his goddamn business when Cas was _dead_ , when Cas was burnt to a crisp and then suddenly made whole again— and jeez, Dean doesn’t even really know if this is Cas, and he’s brought him here, to the bunker, where Lucifer wearing Cas’s meatsuit had terrorized his brother, where— where Sam is _missing_ —

Dean stalks up to Cas, who turns around. “It is my goddamn business,” Dean says. “It is my goddamn business when you— when you come here, into my home—”

“I thought this was my home, too,” Cas says, lips curled up into a sneer. “Or was that invitation rescinded when I got in the way of you figuring out how to get an angel to possess Sam without his consent?”

That—  _that_ — “You son of a bitch,” Dean roars, just holding back from planting one right in Cas’s smug fucking face. “You son of a bitch, don’t you talk about—”

Dean’s throat catches humiliatingly, and Cas laughs. “Talk about what, Dean?” he says, and despite the expression on his face his voice is soft, even kind. “Talk about how you’d throw me under the bus again and again for Sam? Talk about how I’m only good when I’m useful?”

Dean swallows. “That’s not what I meant, and you know it,” he says, face flaming. “Don’t— don’t twist this around. Sam’s fucking missing—”

“And he’d be so much better served by you yelling at me for things I can’t control,” Cas retorts. “If you want me to leave, you only have to say.”

Dean wonders how this got so out of hand. “If you want to go, I’m not keeping you here,” he says. “I’ll get Sam back my damn self.”

“With no one to help I doubt you’d _feed_ your damn self for more than a week, you’re so desperate not to be alone,” Cas snaps, and then turns away sharp, like he hadn’t meant to let that slip.

Right. Right. “Okay,” Dean says, and he hates how his voice wavers. He wants to be angry, but that just _hurts_. “Okay, I— _shit_ , Cas.”

“Dean—”

“Don’t you fucking touch me,” he says, shaking. He’s building up to that fury now, furious at how easy it is these days to get under his skin. “Don’t— you know what? Fuck you, Castiel. Fuck you and your goddamn high horse.”

“I don’t own any kind of horse,” Cas says flatly.

Dean knows he got that idiom. Dean _knows_ Cas is just trying to piss him off, and God knows why. “You know what I fucking meant. Just read Sam’s notes, all right?”

Cas huffs out a laugh. “Should I read them in another room, or do you think you can resist screaming at me for no reason if I stay here?”

Dean resolutely keeps his mouth shut and his back turned, and studies the ritual setup Sam left on the table. They’ll get Sam and maybe even Mom back, and then everything will be fine. Everything will be just fine.

* * *

“Oh, baby,” is how Lucifer greets Sam, a crooning rasp that sends the wrong kind of shivers up Sam’s spine. He doesn’t mention Mary at all, which is as concerning as it is relieving.

Lucifer walks up to Sam, and Sam forces himself to stand his ground; it’s part of their stupid plan to let him get close enough, but Sam can barely think over the shudders that want to wrack his body, the bone-deep cold that Lucifer brings with him. Mary’s technically out of sight, but Sam isn’t under the illusion that Lucifer doesn’t know exactly where she is.

“How’re you gonna stop me this time, kiddo?” Lucifer puts his hand on Sam’s arm, and he can’t stop himself from flinching back. He can’t open his mouth, because he’s afraid of what will come out. Lucifer laughs. “Oh, don’t flinch, baby,” he says, crowding up into Sam’s space as far as he can without touching him. Lucifer grins, and stands up on his tiptoes to whisper into Sam’s ear, “Daddy’s here.”

“Shut up,” Sam says, once his vocal cords become functioning again. He wants it to sound sarcastic, derisive, but it comes out a desperate plea, like everything does around Lucifer.

Lucifer clicks his tongue. “No, Sammy, I don’t think I will. After all, we should put on a show for Mommy dearest, shouldn’t we?” Lucifer snakes an arm around Sam’s torso in some perverse mockery of a waltz hold, and Sam steps back. Lucifer follows him. “Hey, I ain’t gonna hurt you doll! Just wanna dance.”

“Let go of me,” Sam hisses. He holds close the thought that he’ll be free soon, that if all goes according to plan, in a few minutes Mary will be done the ritual and Lucifer will be expelled from his vessel. He just has to stall.

Lucifer stops moving. Sam is almost grateful. “What do you mean?” The way he says it, it’s as though he’s genuinely confused. Why would Sam want to stop? “When we were roomies, you begged me to touch you, any way you could get. Don’t you remember?”

Sam remembers. He remembers years of being completely, indescribably alone, years of what could only be inadequately described as starvation without the promise of death. He remembers when Lucifer came to him, literally blinding in his glory, and even his freezing touch was better than the pure nothing that had taken Sam, inside and out.

“Shut up,” he chokes out again.

“Get some new material,” Lucifer groans, stepping back. Sam takes in a breath, and it feels like the first he’s taken in ages. “I did you a lot of favors down under, you know. I taught you Enochian. Bet that’s come in handy upstairs.”

Sam had Enochian beaten into him, picked it up in the Cage’s fucked up immersion environment after a hundred years of not being able to understand what reasons Lucifer and Michael were giving for using his soul as a punching bag. His Enochian is a little skewed to the violent and derogatory, to say the least. “You didn’t teach me anything,” he says eventually.

“Really?” Lucifer gets what can only be described as a glint in his eye, and the low-grade fear that’s made a home in Sam’s stomach since he got here suddenly ratchets up into adrenaline-fueled prey instinct. “I taught you how to ask to be hurt. I taught you to be grateful when someone gives you a gift.” Lucifer steps up, body flush with Sam’s, and just puts his hand on Sam’s ass, casual as anything, pulling him in. Shit. _Shit_. Sam is shocked into stillness. He can’t say anything at all. “Sammy,” Lucifer says, low and smooth, “say thank you.”

Sam blinks. If he gets through this, it’ll be over— he’ll never have to live this again— a century in, he’d crawled to Lucifer and hacked out a wet _thank you_ for every hit— his body is not his own. Even when Lucifer’s out of the picture, it’s not his own. Lucifer was just the first to teach him how to accept it. “Remember, this is mine,” Lucifer continues, patting Sam’s ass with one hand, other hand on Sam’s chest. Sam can’t breathe. “And I’m being very, very nice to it, so I think you should thank me, Sammy.” He pauses, and then, nails digging in, he sings, “I’m waiting.”

Sam raises his shaking hands and pushes Lucifer off him, uses the mass he’s got over Lucifer’s second favorite vessel. From the safe distance of a whole foot, he says, “No.”

Lucifer shakes his head. “Sam, you must’ve forgotten.” He grins. “Our safeword is _yes_.”

“No,” Sam repeats, the floodgates open, “no, no, I don’t want that.” He’s trying to keep his mind on the fact that he’s got to hold out for a few minutes, just a few minutes longer, maybe only two, maybe even one, but his mind keeps circling back to the Cage. This whole world is like a corporeal Cage, and Lucifer has full reign. Sam has to limit the damage.

“I think you do,” Lucifer says. “I think you do want this. Your body was _made_ for this.” He trails a hand over Sam’s shoulders, his arms, his stomach. Sam’s abdomen tightens at the memory of Lucifer’s hands reaching in and tugging on his soul. Lucifer’s voice starts to sound dreamy. “Your whole body was made for me. Everything, down to the last atom. It’s all mine, all for me to play with.” He looks up, and he almost looks loving, in whatever way the Devil himself is able. “Everything about you is such a beautiful playroom, you know. Your whole insides, just made to be my perfect home. That’s part of why Michael hated me so much, y’know.”

Sam swallows. Lucifer doesn’t continue. “Why?” he asks.

“I got to have you.” Lucifer smirks. “I got to have you, my specially tailored onesie, and Michael never got to even touch his true vessel. Michael never got to see Dean’s soul, let alone know it as intimately as I know you.”

Sam doesn’t like the idea that Lucifer knows him better than anyone else knows him, but it’s disturbingly true. No one else has seen Sam’s soul, shivering and exposed for hundreds and hundreds of years, not even Dean. No one else _could_ , not the way Lucifer has. “You don’t know me,” he whispers anyway, feeling like Peter denying Christ. A futile, shameful endeavor.

“But I do! I do. I know you like the back of my hand. Well, not this hand,” he says, waving his vessel’s left hand. He grabs Sam’s hand before Sam can stop him. It feels like his reflexes are frozen solid. “ _This_ hand, obviously.”

“Obviously,” Sam parrots automatically, wincing as he does it. Shit.

Lucifer grins broadly. “You _do_ remember the rules! I’m so glad.”

Sam pulls his hand out of Lucifer’s grip. “You’re not going to win this one. You’ll never see your son.”

Lucifer pouts. “That may be true. There’s no need to worry, though, because Sam, baby, I have _you_. I have you, and a whole world we get to explore together. A ‘you can’t run, you can’t hide’ kinda deal, y’know? I’ll hunt you down, and I’ll wear you down until the only word in your vocabulary is yes, and then I’ll _take_ you, because you belong to me.”

Sam can’t begin to imagine how he’d stop Lucifer. Any angel could keep this sick, weak, human body of his alive for as long as they want, and compared to an eternity, it’d be no time at all before Sam broke and said yes. Even if he cut out his own throat, Lucifer could bring him back and make him whole and ready.

“I don’t,” Sam protests weakly, “I don’t belong to you.”

Lucifer laughs. “Oh, Sam—”

Three things happen, then, which Sam is only able to process after the fact. What he notices in the moment is Lucifer’s vessel collapsing to the ground, dead-eyed, skin peeling. After half a minute, what used to be Nick’s body is a skeleton, muscles shriveled and skin rolled up like a scroll.

The second thing is Dean yelling _Sam? Sam!_ like a disembodied voice out of a megaphone. Sam only hears this when, five minutes after Lucifer’s vessel shuffles off this mortal coil, he feels Mom’s hand on his shoulder. “Sam,” she’s saying, “Sam, honey, turn around.” He’s grateful she doesn’t say baby.

He turns around to see the third thing, which he will later be told was accompanied by an earthquake and thunder louder than his mom had ever heard before; it’s a portal.

Dean steps through. “Sam? God damn it, Sam, what the—  _Mom_?” The emotions that slide over his face are hilarious, or would be if Sam was capable of feeling anything after having his whole being frozen out by Lucifer’s touch.

“Let’s get out of here, okay?” Mom says, and gently prods Sam through the portal into that dead forest. Sam notices that Dean tenses the moment they step through, somehow upwards onto the bank of the pond, and he makes the connection to what Purgatory must have looked like. Of course.

Dean leads them out through the dark trees, brittle leaves snapping crisp under their shoes like wishbones. He seems to know where he’s going, and Sam almost recognizes the route. He’s not entirely sure he’s remembering it right, but Dean’s here. Dean will lead them out.

Sam can almost hear Lucifer’s voice in his head. Lucifer had been talking English for Mary’s benefit — and Sam knows he’s going to have to handle that whole situation later — but his true voice, the one Sam will never forget, speaks in Enochian.

Don’t you want to come home to me, is what he’d say right now. Lucifer’s nothing but grace wandering untethered in that other world, trapped and probably decaying in a universe so far from his own with no vessel to hold him together, but Sam can hear echoes of him clear as day. In Enochian, there’s no distinction between a command and an assumption of desire; when Lucifer told him to spread ‘em like a bitch in heat in the Cage, it had come out _I’ll let you bend over for me_ , and when Sam had done it, what Lucifer had said meant _you’re welcome_.

They must be getting close to their world; they’ve been walking for near ten minutes, and when you know where you’re going, this place seems to lead you straight to it. Once Sam steps through that portal, he’ll be free. He starts laughing.

“What’s so funny?” Dean asks, still angry from Sam going rogue.

Sam grins. “I’m free,” he says, but Mary turns to look at him, and he realizes he’d said it in Enochian. Said three syllables that, now that he thinks about it, translate to _I no longer obey_. Jesus, what a fucked up language. “I’m free,” he says again in English, and looks at Dean and Mary’s blank faces. “Lucifer’s in that other world, and I don’t have to— I don’t—” He sighs. “God. I’m finally fucking free.”

“All right, Sammy,” Dean says, mouth twitching nervously. “Let’s, uh— let’s keep walkin’, all right?”

“Yeah,” Sam says, breathless. The Lucifer in his head says _Easy now, Sammy, let’s not count our chickens before they’re hatched_. Sam snorts. “Shut up,” he says good-naturedly, and ignores Dean and Mary’s concerned looks.

“We’re here,” Dean says, and turns to the two of them. “Okay, uh— I’ll just poke my head in, make sure it’s the right one—”

“It’s fine, Dean, I’ll go,” Mom says, and before they can stop her, she steps through. They wait for a moment, and then they hear: _What? Castiel? I— uh._ There’s a pause. _I think this is it?_

Sam looks at Dean. _Cas?_ he mouths.

Dean shakes his head sharply. “You next,” he says, and shoves Sam through. Sam sets eyes on his mom, and then— “ _Cas_?”

He’s almost afraid this is another hallucination, some trick from Lucifer, but he turns around and there’s Dean, through the portal. “All right, close ‘er up, Cas,” he says, and Cas turns around and does some weird shit with the altar that makes the hole in the universe vanish.

Holy shit. Lucifer is behind a wall which can pretty much only be broken by a nephilim. Sam’s knees shake with relief.

Cas smiles, like he knows what Sam’s thinking, and that brings him to the next order of business. “Cas? You’re alive?” Sam turns to Dean. “When did you find out about this?”

Dean opens his mouth. Dean closes his mouth.

“Jesus Christ, Dean,” Sam says. “What the _hell_ , man. Why the hell would you keep this from me?”

“Oh, like you’re one to talk,” Dean snaps. “Going after Mom alone, half-cocked? Why didn’t _you_ tell me about _this_ maybe, I dunno, more than eight hours before you did it!”

“Because I thought this was something I could do without you, Dean, since you were so cut up about everything that went down, but clearly you’ve just been playing house with Cas while I’ve been busting my ass trying to save Mom!”

“I coulda helped you,” Dean says. “I coulda helped you, hell, _we_ coulda helped you!”

“Oh yeah, like I was supposed to know Cas was around to help when you didn’t tell me jack!”

“Sam,” Cas says quietly. Sam breathes sharply, eyes locked on Dean. Cas sighs. “ _Sam_.”

“Yeah.” Sam turns to look at Cas.

“I’m sorry my presence has caused tension between you two,” Cas says, and Sam sighs.

“No, damn it, Cas, that’s not what I meant. I’m real glad you’re here.” He quirks a smile at Cas, who gives him one back. “I just— I just don’t get why Dean’s riding my ass about keeping secrets when I deserved to know about you. I mean, c’mon, Dean. We’re—” Sam keeps his eyes on Cas, even though his words are directed to his brother. “We’re friends, okay? My friend died that night, too. I would’ve appreciated knowing that he was back.”

Cas says, “I don’t know why Dean chose not to tell you—”

“No, it’s not on you, man. Although I am wondering why you didn’t tell us.” Cas doesn’t add anything, and Sam figures that’s a problem for later, so he continues. “But Dean— come on, Dean—”

“I couldn’t figure out how,” Dean murmurs, face turned away. His hand is resting on a chair, fingers brushing slowly against the wood. He swallows. “I just— I’m sorry, Sam, I really am. But this is— look, I kept a secret from you, and it was wrong, and I own that. But _this_ , Sam? Going to another world with no backup? What the hell were you thinking?”

“I—” Sam can’t explain his desire to have something useful for Dean to come home to. There’s something broken inside him probably, that soft thing in him that wanted peace and safety curdled from Lucifer poking at it. He can’t say that to Dean. “I dunno.”

“Oh, you don’t know,” Dean says mockingly. “Great. Great, I’m supposed to—”

“You’re not supposed to do jack shit, Dean, I’m my own goddamn person—”

“So I’m not supposed to care about you anymore, is that it? You want me to let you walk right into your own death, after we’ve lost God knows how many friends? Is that what you want?”

“I’m just saying, Dean, we’ve had way more than our fair share of chances! You gotta stop trying to protect me—”

“Oh, so I _am_ supposed to just let you kill yourself—”

“I had a plan, Dean, this wasn’t just—”

“ _Enough_.” They turn to look at their mom, blinking back tears. Shit. She breathes in and out, with her arms crossed over her chest. Quieter, she repeats, “Enough.”

Dean breaks first. He bows his head and says, “I’m sorry, Mom.”

“No, that’s not—” She blows out a breath. “Look. We’re all tired. Just— let’s just all get some rest, okay?” She turns to Cas, and puts a hand on his shoulder. “I’m glad you’re alive.”

Sam snorts involuntarily at the ridiculous phrasing, and Mom turns around to mock glare at him. Cas smiles. “You as well,” he intones gravely.

Then Cas says, “We should start to think about Lucifer’s child,” and Dean laughs anxiously.

“Nope, no way, buddy,” he says, and Sam can’t help but notice Cas’s frown at the word buddy. Huh. “I’m gonna go drink a bottle of whiskey and then pass out for the next twelve hours. Nobody die while I’m gone.” He grins as he walks away, but Sam can see the sickly fear underneath.

Sam says, “I should go make sure he doesn’t actually drink a whole bottle of whiskey on his own.” Cas looks like he’s about to say something, but doesn’t, so Sam turns to follow his brother into the hallway. There’s something extra weird going on there, he thinks, but he’ll turn it over when he’s got more than a few hours of sleep in him.

“Dean,” he calls.

Dean stops. “Hey.”

“I just— wanted to check in.”

“Right.” Dean laughs. “Sam, I’m not actually going to drink a whole bottle of whiskey.”

“I— uh, yeah, of course.” Sam steps back, wrongfooted. “Um. Do you need anything?”

Sam can’t really tell what the look on Dean’s face means, but it’s probably nothing good. “Sam, I—” He shakes his head. Smiles, weakly. “I got no fuckin’ clue what I need.”

Sam nods. “Yeah, I feel that. Hey,” and he pats Dean’s shoulder roughly, like they’re bros on a sports team or something. This is the first time he’s seen his brother in almost two weeks, he realizes. “Get some sleep.”

“Yeah.” Dean blinks, and if nothing else, Sam’s sure that that’s at least mostly exhaustion pulling at the corners of his eyes. “Yeah, good idea.”

“All right.” Sam awkwardly steps back, and then takes another step, and then walks towards the kitchen.

Oh yeah. They’re doing just fine.

* * *

_Dean is eating a cheeseburger in a food court._

_Generally, he avoids malls, but here he is, in a goddamn mall. You couldn’t tell what city he’s in from inside; the place is windowless, except for the glass panels in the ceiling that let in the pale blue light of an overcast day. There’s a tray of food across from him: another cheeseburger, an untouched wax cardboard cup of Coke, and a box of curly fries._

_There’s a locket with Cas’s face in it somewhere. Dean’s not sure where it is — it might be on the table in front of him, or burning a hole in his pocket, or weighing heavy on his neck — but he knows it exists. He needs it. He doesn’t realize he’s doing it, but he’s eating the paper the cheeseburger came wrapped in. Doesn’t have time to unwrap it as he bites._

_Dean notices there’s no one else in the mall. He looks around. The restaurants in the food court are open, lit, but no one’s manning the cash. There are no ambient sounds of shoppers or security guards or rowdy teens. He turns in his seat, like a kid, and peers at the giant walkways leading from the food court to the various stores. The big fluorescents above them are off; Dean can’t see where the paths end._

_He turns back around, and there’s Death, sitting across the table._

_“Quite a lovely spread,” he says. His voice sounds the same; it always sounds the same. His accent, his posh indifference. Death was the one constant in Dean’s life, until he wasn’t._

_Death looks up at Dean, as though he expects a response. “Yeah,” Dean hears himself say._

_“Good work,” Death says, but doesn’t elaborate. He has the locket in his hand, the hand that’s not occupied with transporting individual curly fries to his mouth. “I do appreciate the meal, Dean. I’ve been famished.”_

_“Oh?” Dean can’t get enough saliva in his mouth. He swallows frantically, but his spit catches on something during its journey down, and he’s left with an ache in the back of his throat that won’t go away._

_Death puts down the locket, and looks Dean in the eyes. Dean’s heart feels like it might beat right out of his chest. It’s a wonder it’s beating at all. “I find myself intrigued by your circumstances,” Death says. “Your brother, now, he’s a fine young man. Respectable, and respectful. Two things I like in a human. But you.” Death laughs, if it can be called laughter. “You reaped me.”_

_Dean breathes furtively, as though Death won’t notice if he does it quiet enough. “Sorry,” he croaks._

_“I’m not entirely certain you feel that way.” Death’s fingers stroke lovingly over the locket. He takes on a musing tone, although maybe Dean just interprets it that way. He sounds the same as he always does._

_“Uh—” Dean panics, and he says, “But I do?”_

_Death smiles, patronizingly tolerant of Dean’s insolence. He takes pity on Dean and changes the subject. “You must wonder why I’m here.” He smiles. “Am I but a dream? Have I returned from my own end?”_

_“That— that would be nice to know,” Dean says. It doesn’t matter, though. What would he even try, if Death was back? There will always be death in the world, and Dean’s not itching to take on the most powerful horseman of the apocalypse anytime soon._

_Death laughs. “I rarely give easy answers, Dean.” He pauses, dramatically. It’s pretty effective. “But enough about me. Tell me, Dean.” Death reaches out, and takes Dean’s hand. Suddenly, Dean is dying. Dean is_ dying _. “How are you?”_

_He releases Dean’s hand, and Dean gasps in the painful breath of a newborn. “I— I—” He lets go of the locket, and it clatters to the table. It’s been in his hand the whole time. “I’m fine.”_

_Death frowns. “Don’t lie to me, Dean,” he says. “You are not well. In fact…” He reaches out, to take Dean’s wrists in both of his hands. “Oh, my boy,” Death purrs, a slight smirk tugging at his mouth. His left hand strokes lightly up Dean’s right arm; he’s not cold, like Dean thought he might be, or burning hot. Just empty pressure. “Are you flirting with me?”_

Dean gasps himself awake.

* * *

Sam putters around the kitchen, too keyed up to sleep. He’s mostly afraid of having a dream about Lucifer; it would be nice to have at least a full day of being solid in the knowledge that Lucifer’s never coming back.

He’s real lucky Mom met up with Bobby and co. on the other side. Here, where the apocalypse never happened, angel blades and Enochian sigils were enough to stay the flow of angelic power, but over there, human survival instinct and ingenuity led to spells like the one they used to expel Lucifer from his vessel.

Sam pours himself two fingers of whiskey. It’s not really his drink — he’s more of a beer guy and, when drunken oblivion is required, vodka — but tonight’s a night for fancy booze type celebration. Well, he’s drinking alone since everyone else is asleep, so it’s probably still alcoholism. Oops.

“What’re you doin’ up?” he hears, and turns around to see Dean rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. Great: Sam’s officially out of alcohol dependency territory.

“Wanted to bask in Lucifer not being in the same universe as me,” Sam says. Hot damn. He hasn’t even thought about the theological ramifications of Satan being trapped in another universe. Once again: what the _fuck_ are their lives?

“Huh.” Dean parks himself at the tiny table in their kitchen, and Sam pours him a drink. He doesn’t like to encourage Dean’s alcoholic tendencies, but he can make an exception tonight. They had an unadulterated win, for maybe the first time ever.

Dean downs the whole thing in one go, and Sam winces. “So,” he says, “what brings you to the kitchen at three in the morning?”

“Weird dream.”

Sam frowns. It’s rare that their dreams are weird; terrifying and depressing, often, nostalgic, slightly less often, but very rarely _weird_. “What’d you dream about?”

“Death.” It takes a second for Sam to realize that Dean means the horseman, and not the concept. Or the experience. “Man, he was… he just told me all this weird shit.”

“Oookay.” Sam doesn’t pour Dean another drink, and Dean doesn’t move to get one. Small victories. “Like what?”

Dean shakes his head. “Nothin’... like, I don’t even know if it was actually him or if it was just my brain, y’know? He didn’t say anything important.”

Sam catches Dean’s hand flexing, like it should be holding something. “Right.” Sam smiles briefly, there and gone in a flash. “Of course you’re dreaming about Death, after what might’ve been our only win without a catastrophic B-side. Unreal.”

Dean’s mouth twitches. “You lied to me and almost got yourself killed,” he starts quietly, “and Mom’s back and she’s _missing a finger_ and Cas— _Cas_ —”

“Dean—”

“I don’t even know what the _hell_ is going on with Cas, you hear me? I’m flyin’ blind here, Sam, I don’t know which way’s up and which way’s hell and which way I’m supposed to be headed! You— you’ve got this whole research guru crap, and I’m nothin’ but a— a— a queer fuckin’ deadweight with mommy issues!”

Sam blinks.

Dean blinks.

“Shit,” Dean says, “shit, I— shit, shit—”

Sam reaches out, and Dean jerks his arm back. “Dean, it’s okay,” he says soothingly, the same voice he uses on trauma victims and startled animals, “dude, you’re owed a meltdown or forty by this point—”

“Oh my God I’m not gay,” Dean spills out all in a rush, and holds his face in his hands. “Ohhh my God, what the fuck is happening.”

Sam, because Sam has read an article or two about trauma since he’s not, you know, vigorously repressing his entire life, could hypothesize that Dean’s letting it all out now that there’s no threat actively trying to end their/the world’s/the universe’s existence.

Or he could say, simperingly, “Dean. It’s okay to be gay.” He should probably be taking this a little more seriously, but it seems like such a non-issue compared to the rest of their lives that he can’t imagine a little fun at Dean’s expense would have any lasting impact. Even so, he adds, “For real, Dean. It’s actually totally a hundred percent fine if you’re gay.”

“I’m not,” Dean says into his hands. “I, I still like women, I _love_ women, and anyway, why are we talking about this?”

“You brought it up.” Sam sips at his whiskey — he’s not a heathen, so he’s still got a good amount left.

“I did, didn’t I.” Dean sighs. “Damn it.”

Sam decides to take pity on Dean. “So other than your weird obsession with your newfound bisexuality—”

“Are you even gonna ask how that came up?”

Dean’s eyes can only be described as pleading, so Sam lets him off the hook. “Dean, I know it’s Cas.”

“Oh.” Dean taps his fingers against the table for a second, and then stands up to get himself a drink. He sits back down, whiskey in hand. “All right, keep going.”

“So what did Death say?”

Dean drinks. “Asked if I was _flirting_ with him.”

“Huh.” Maybe that also contributed to the sexuality freakout. Sam frowns, confusedly. “Like… wait, like, you mean like _flirting with death_? In the idiomatic sense?”

Dean rolls his eyes. “Quit it with the SAT vocab, Sam, we all know you went to college.”

“For God’s sake, Dean.” Sam looks at him, suddenly more worried than he was during Dean’s minor bi panic. “Are you in danger? Have you been putting yourself in danger?”

“No!” Dean snorts. “I’m not you, Sam, I do have the survival instinct of a normal human being.”

“That’s rich.” It’s not really funny, though. “Seriously, Dean. Should I be worried?”

Dean appears to actually think about it. Sam doesn’t take his eyes off him.

Finally, Dean takes a sip of his drink. “D’you still need me around, Sammy?” he asks, quiet.

What? _What?_ “Yeah,” Sam breathes out, “yeah, yes, _yes_ , of course, Dean. What the hell are you talking about?”

Dean blinks and looks down and away, the way he does when he doesn’t want Sam to see what he’s feeling. It hurts to look at every time, hurts just as bad as it did when Dean did it as a little kid while Sam, even littler, watched him. “I dunno,” he grits out. “I guess I just thought…”

“Well you thought wrong, Dean.” Sam shakes his head. “Do I need you, Jesus, as if I’m ever gonna live a life without you.”

“You shouldn’t have to.” Dean looks at his glass, determinedly avoiding Sam’s gaze. “I mean it. You shouldn’t have to be stuck with me just because.”

“Just because you’re my brother? Just because you’re the only family I got that I can rely on?” Sam reaches out, and this time he makes contact with Dean’s forearm. They’re not usually touchy feely, not like this, but Sam can’t be out of contact with Dean right now. The man’s dreams are telling him he’s flirting with death. “Dean. I’ll always need you. Doesn’t matter how old I am, doesn’t matter what you do.”

“I tricked you into letting Gadreel in.” Dean pulls his arm back, and Sam doesn’t reach for it again. “Sam, I can’t— not to mention what I did when I was a demon—”

“That wasn’t you—”

“It _was_ , Sam! It’s always… it’s never anyone’s fault but me, turning into the things I hate most. You know I was just like Dad when I was with Lisa and Ben? Jesus, I almost killed them both, and— and the Mark? It’s never anyone else, Sam. It’s just me, and sometimes I feel like…”

Sam finishes his drink. To think he really believed he’d have a whole night to celebrate. “You feel like what, Dean?”

“I feel like you’d all be better off without me.”

Sam swallows. “Dean—”

“Not— I’m not suicidal, Sam, not really, I just mean… maybe I’d hunt separate from you, let you live your life without this fuckin’ chain around your neck.”

Sam stands up. Dean won’t look at him, keeps his hand on his glass and his face set like he’s expecting Sam to walk away from him. “Come here, you idiot,” Sam says gently.

Dean looks up at him. “What?”

“Stand up.” Dean does, and Sam pulls him in for a hug. “Jesus Christ,” Sam whispers into Dean’s neck, “don’t you say that shit to me. I need you. You hear me? We’ve done shit, all of us, and I say it’s forgiven. All of it. I forgive you.”

Dean shudders at that. “Sammy,” he croaks out. “Sammy, I’m sorry.”

“You don’t have to apologize,” Sam says. He holds Dean, and Dean’s arms tighten around him. “I mean it. All I need is you, here, with me.”

Dean holds on a little longer, and then steps back, complete with manly back pats. “All right, then,” he says gruffly, sounding for all the world like Bobby making fun of their emotional talks. Sam’s chest aches. “You got me, here, with you. As long as you need me.” He grins. “Well, actually, right now you got me on the couch watchin’ Netflix, if that sounds fun to you.”

“Yeah.” Sam breathes out. “Yeah, it really, really does.”


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi friends! i feel very terrible about leaving this fic to rot for so long- please accept this extra long, meandering, plotless chapter which is almost entirely about dean's abandonment issues as penance.  
> i've added another chapter (i know, shocking) but i PROMISE chapter 7 will be the last chapter. also, in case anyone's interested, i'm now on 9x08 in my supernatural marathon of doom, and a) watching twelve seasons of a TV show is a Lot, and b) bad boys (9x07) was such a great episode. that is all, see you hopefully less than a month from now for the final (actually final!) update to this ridiculous sprawling mess!!!

“So how’d you do it?” Dean mumbles through a mouthful of eggs.

Him and Sam had slept in the bunker’s lounge area (as much as anywhere in this nuclear bunker can be called lounge-worthy), dragging a mattress (Sam’s, because Dean’s not letting his precious memory foam touch the grody concrete floor) and a pile of blankets down next to the couch, because they’re old enough that their backs would feel it the next day if they fell asleep on the floor. Dean woke up first, probably around five or six, and started a pot of coffee. Three hours later, Mom and Sam deigned to make it to the table, where Dean’s got a pan of scrambled eggs and some toast on the ready. Sam didn’t seem to have prioritized buying groceries when he was here alone.

“I found this ritual for traveling to the faerie realms,” Sam replies.

Jesus. “Jesus, dude, those guys are the _worst_. Did you not remember the last faerie we came across?” Dean still shudders to think about his alien abduction.

“No, no, I kind of reworked it so I’d end up in another universe instead of Avalon, y’know, added some juice—”

“What does _that_ mean?”

“Uh.” Sam shrugs. “Blood? Some Enochian?”

“Holy shit.” Dean closes his eyes. His brother is a genius. A terrifying, self-sacrificing genius. “Wait… where’d you find the Enochian?”

Sam blinks confusedly, like that’s the last thing he expected out of Dean’s mouth. “I made it up.” He says it like Dean’s an idiot. _Obviously I just came up with the angelic language spell on the spot, ya dingus_.

“What? How?”

Sam frowns. “Huh,” he says thoughtfully, almost to himself. “I really never told you.”

Dean looks over at Mom, who seems to have even less of a clue than he does. “Told me what?”

“Dude, I spent like more’n a century and a half in the Cage, and angels don’t speak human languages when they don’t have to. Hell, sometimes I still dream in Enochian.”

Shit. What the fuck. “What the _fuck_ , man.” Dean shakes his head, mostly just astounded at the level of fuckery that they’ve been through. “Sam. That’s fucked up.”

Sam shrugs. “It’s come in handy a few times now. Pretty useful, honestly.”

Pretty useful. Sam spent decades being tortured so bad that the memory of it liquefied even _Cas_ ’s brain, but it was _pretty useful_. Jeez.

“Lucifer mentioned that,” Mom says quietly, and Sam flinches. Damn. Dean didn’t even think to ask about what went down in those hours before he got there.

“What did Lucifer say?” Dean looks at the two of them. Sam won’t meet his eyes. “Hey, Sammy, look at me.”

Sam meets his eyes, and Dean blows out a breath. “Okay,” Dean says, trying to work through it, “okay, so Lucifer was— what, he was there? I thought— how long did you have to listen to him talk?” Dean’s remembering every time Sam froze in place at the sound of Lucifer’s voice, every time Sam flinched from an innocent hand because he was seeing Lucifer in Dean’s place.

“Just a few minutes,” Sam gets out. “It was just— the spell, the one we used to expel him from his vessel—”

“You can do that?” Dean’s lips quirk up despite himself. “Dude, awesome.”

“Yeah,” Sam says, “yeah, Mom figured it out. With the hunters on the other side.”

Dean waits. Sam doesn’t seem any more forthcoming. “And…?”

“And the spell was tethered to Sam,” Mom says all at once.

Dean fucking knew it was gonna be some bullshit like that, but he’s still angry. More’n a decade of dragging Sam through, more’n a decade of pissing away his own life so Sam could keep his, and Sam decides to tether a spell to himself so he can be all up in Lucifer’s space. Typical.

“Nice,” Dean spits. It’s too early for a beer — and anyway, he’s trying to cut back — but he desperately wants something to numb the anger shivering under his skin. “That’s real nice, Sam, oh yeah, just use my body, who gives a shit, right—”

“Dean, come on,” Sam says, passively mediating like he’s done since the moment Mom got back. “It needed to be done.”

And even Dean, who’s so hard up for human contact these days that he bonded with a British torture-happy maniac over killing vamps, has to accept that. “I just don’t want you dead,” Dean admits, and Sam rolls his eyes.

“Yeah, I know. That’s why you said yes to Gadreel,” Sam bites out. “That’s why you just keep bringing me back over and over again when I’m ready to go, right? No natural order for the Winchesters.”

Dean knows Sam is thinking of Billie — of the Empty, the threat that sounded more like peace — and of Dean’s day as Death when he was angling to get Sam’s soul back. He can’t argue with Sam’s assessment; he’s just not certain it’s so terrible a thing.

The scrape of a chair has them both flinching back. Dean turns to look at Mom, who’s pushed herself back from the table. She sighs, still seated. “Can someone please explain to me why everyone around here wants to be dead?”

No one answers. Dean, feeling more like a seventeen year old caught smoking out back than a thirty-seven year old man with an additional four decades sort of under his belt, swallows loudly.

“I’m serious,” Mom continues. “I spent thirty-three years doing it, and it wasn’t so great. There’s no Spotify in Heaven, for one thing.”

Dean manages to choke out a laugh.

“It’s not like that,” Sam says, mediating between Mom and his brother again. Dean guesses it’s Sam’s turn with this parent. “I don’t want to die, it’s just… if I’m already dead, I don’t appreciate sacrifices being made to bring me back, or massive cosmic consequences happening for my sake, you know? I mean, it’s okay if you’re not, but I’m just ready for some peace.”

Dean forgets it, usually, something about the memories of Mom cutting the crusts off his sandwiches keeping him from seeing what’s right in front of him, but Sam’s older than she is. Dean is, too, and the wrongness of that sits heavy in him every day, but: _Sam’s_ older than his mother, by almost four years, not to mention the centuries in Hell. Sam’s talking like Mom’s some young whippersnapper and he’s some old vet ready to turn in. Dean’s not sure where he falls on the issue, personally.

Cas shuffles into the kitchen, bleary-eyed and clearly not happy about being awake at nine in the morning. He blinks at the obvious tension, mumbles, “I’m not responsible for emotional damage before noon,” and makes his way to the coffee maker.

When he pours water into the coffee pot and stares at it for a solid minute, Dean stands up. “Jesus, Cas, let me do that,” he says, and takes the pot from his hands, trying not to flinch too obviously away from Cas’s bare hands. They haven’t slept together — both literally and euphemistically speaking — since the fight where Dean lost his shit for no reason and Cas asked if Dean wanted him to leave and Dean couldn’t say anything useful.

While Dean deals with the coffee maker and Cas watches silently, he listens to Sam and Mom’s voices murmuring behind him. _I don’t even know how many days I was gone_ , Mom’s saying, and Sam goes, _‘Bout two weeks. I was there about a day before Dean picked us up_. Dean knew that, obviously, but then Mom says, _A day? What were you doing before you found me, then?_ and he’s gotta step in. “Yeah, Sam, what were you doing?” Sam didn’t tell Dean he wasn’t with Mom the whole time.

Sam shrugs. “Had to find that other universe. Kinda took some trial and error. I’d like to know how you found us right away, actually.”

“Archangel spell,” Cas croaks out, eyes glued to the coffee. “Used Dean’s soul.”

Dean shudders at the memory. Having someone touch your soul hurts, indescribably, and Dean’s frankly shocked that both Bobby and Sammy volunteered to do it, but it’s especially awkward when your buddy’s hand is reaching into your stomach to pull out your guts while you’re not exactly on speaking terms with the guy because of a stupid fight an hour earlier.

“Huh.” Sam nods. “All right then.”

Coffee drips steadily into the pot. Mom says, “So, what did you get up to? I assume you went to some other universes.”

“Yeah.” Sam shivers. “Yikes.”

“What was the worst one?” Dean trips all over himself to quickly say, “Wait, no, don’t answer that. What was the best one?”

“They were all kinda shitty, to be honest,” Sam replies. “Even the ones where we aren’t hunters.” Sam eyes Dean meaningfully, like he’s supposed to get something out of that.

“Okay,” Dean says, because he actually didn’t get anything out of Sam’s incomprehensible attempt at telepathy.

The coffee stops dripping, and a few seconds later, the machine dings. Cas hands Dean a mug, and he fills it up to the brim, without making eye contact. Cas chugs about half of the mug in one shot, and leans against the counter.

“I’m gonna go lie down and watch some TV, I think,” Mom says, into the post-coffee silence. She doesn’t stand up, though; instead, she just looks over at Sam. Softly, she says, “I heard what Lucifer said to you.”

Even Cas quiets his coffee slurping. Dean swallows. He wants to know — and, of course, doesn’t want to think about — what Lucifer said to Sam.

“I know,” Sam murmurs. He keeps his eyes on the table. “We don’t have to talk about it.”

Mom opens her mouth, and closes it. From the safe distance of half a kitchen, Dean and Cas watch as she tries to articulate a question. Finally, as though it’s been pulled out of her guts, she breathes, “He told you to thank him.”

Dean closes his eyes. Cas stares at his coffee. They shouldn’t have heard that.

“Yeah,” Sam says shortly. “He tends — tended — to do that.”

“Jesus, Sam,” Dean says, because he can’t stay silent. “That son of a bitch.”

Cas polishes off his coffee, and sets it down on the counter. “Lucifer will never return to this world,” he says gravely. “You will never see him again.”

Sam nods absentmindedly. “Yeah,” he mutters.

They let the silence rest for a moment. Finally, Mom asks, “Is it… better, now? Do you feel safer?”

“At—” Sam cuts himself off. He shrugs. “I guess.”

Dean almost walks towards the table, but Sam’s shoulders hunch ever so slightly at the sound of Dean’s foot on the floor, so he steps back, terrified of sending Sam into a goddamn panic attack or something.

“You can go, Mom,” Sam says, and it practically sounds like a dismissal. “Seriously,” he adds a little more gently, “go relax, take some time off. You’ve been through a lot. We can talk about this later.”

Mom breathes in, and out. “If you wanna talk about it, you know where I’ll be,” she says softly. Her hand — they didn’t even ask how she lost the finger, shit — pushes her into a standing position. “I mean it, Sam.”

“Thanks, Mom,” he says, quirking one of his blink-and-you’ll-miss-it smiles.

Then Cas blurts, out of nowhere, “I can’t return your finger to you, Mary, but I can heal the wound, so you don’t have to wear a bandage.”

“Oh.” Mom blinks, taken aback by the change in subject. Sam looks a little lighter when Dean sneaks a peek at him, though, so he’s grateful. “Sure, yes, Castiel, thank you.”

Cas smiles. “Here, I’ll walk with you.” He leads her out, and he doesn’t even look back at Sam or Dean. He’s getting better at this subtlety thing which, despite the lingering discomfort from the Totally Unnecessary Fight which Dean still can’t make himself apologize for, kind of warms Dean’s heart. Not that Dean’s paying attention to Cas. Whatever.

Then him and Sam both try to start talking at the same time.

“Hey, Sammy, I just—”

“I wanted to say—”

They stop. Dean laughs. “You first.”

“I know about you and Cas,” Sam says, reminding Dean of the embarrassing three AM conversation he had with his brother over whiskey. Awesome. “Just wanted to say, like, no matter how Mom reacts, I’m in your corner, okay?”

Dean blinks. That seems… oddly specific. “Anything you wanna share with the class?”

Sam doesn’t say anything, and he doesn’t look like he’s going to keel over the moment another human comes within two feet of him, so Dean brings him a mug of coffee and sits down across the table from him. Sam holds the mug between both hands, despite the fact that it’s gotta be scalding. Dean tries not to fret.

“There was this one universe where we weren’t hunters,” Sam starts. “And Mom was alive, and we were having dinner, and you told us you were dating Cas, and Mom was totally homophobic and it was fucking terrible.”

Woah. “Hey,” Dean reassures him, “firstly, Cas an’ me ain’t even dating, so that’s not gonna happen anytime soon, okay? Not like I was gonna make a big announcement or anything.”

Sam huffs out a breath disbelievingly, eyes closing like the thought is too absurd to look at. “Okay,” he says, “sure. Right. You making coffee for Cas just now was totally not-dating.”

Dean looks around like the kitchen walls will give him an answer, and downs a healthy swig of his coffee. “Mighta messed it up, actually,” he admits quietly, now that Cas and Mom are out of the room.

“In… what, two days? Wow, Dean, must be a record for you.” Sam’s smile is gentle, though, which takes the sting out of it, sorta. Dean blinks anyway, unsure how to respond. Sam rolls his eyes. “I’m kidding, Dean. I’m sure it’ll work out.”

Dean shrugs. It sure seems stupid to focus on one fight, as though him and Cas haven’t beaten each other up and full on tried to kill each other once or twice, but man. Since when has the shoe ever _not_ dropped on ‘em? If this wasn’t the last straw, Dean gives it about a week before there’s another, more final one that breaks this camel’s back.

“Uh huh,” Dean grunts, mostly to conclude the conversation. Maybe Cas’ll take off. Maybe Cas will end up dead in a month from some mystery death side effect. Maybe the nephilim will nuke all of Kansas and they’ll be vaporized so hard the Empty will be too good for them. Who the hell knows at this point.

“Should we talk about the Lucifer thing?” Dean asks uncomfortably.

“Nah,” Sam says, and Dean’s not ashamed to admit that he’s relieved. “I mean, Lucifer’s shitty. Pretty sure we already knew that.”

Dean frowns. “Little different when he’s telling you to thank him for hurting you, Sammy.”

Sam pauses. He runs his right hand through his hair. “When Mom asked if I was safer,” he starts, “I… I was gonna say, at least all my rapists are dead.”

That sinks into the air like an anchor. It ripples through Dean like an explosion and its shockwaves. “Oh,” he breathes, inadequately.

Sam laughs, a little hysterically. “Yeah, that’s why I didn’t say it to her,” he says. He shakes his head. “We were talking about you and Cas.”

“No, we were done talking about me and Cas, and we moved on to talking about you and Lucifer.”

“So now let’s move on to talking about something else,” Sam snaps.

“Sure,” Dean says placatingly, “sure, yeah, you got it.” Dean breathes out a laugh. How stupid is it that talking about the superpowered teen about to wreak havoc is easier than talking about shit that’s already happened? “Any leads on the nephilim?”

Sam’s eyebrows rise in amusement, like he’s had the same thought. Winchester luck. “No,” he says, “why, you got anything?”

“Nope.” Dean leans back. Feels kind of silly, but he feels like he’s craving Cas, like he’s got a fixing for having his hands in someone else’s hair that he hasn’t learned to curb yet. His fingers twitch. “What do you think we oughta do?”

“Take a damn day off, for starters,” Sam mutters, and it’s been so long since Sam said anything about taking a break for themselves that Dean _aches_. How long’s it been since they felt safe? Have they ever?

“You got it,” Dean says eventually, once he’s had enough coffee to cover up the catch in his voice. He stands up, and pats Sam on the arm as he passes him. “I’m goin’ to my room. You better not have touched my stuff while I was gone.”

“Your porn is safe, Dean,” Sam says, and Dean can’t push down the smile as he walks out of the kitchen.

* * *

Of course, Dean runs into Cas on the way to his room. Can’t catch a break.

“Dean,” Cas says. It’s always like that with him, like Dean’s name is something to savor, something that can express volumes in itself. It makes Dean feel disrespectful for saddling Cas with his current nickname, but after almost a decade it seems impossible to wrap his mouth around the unwieldy syllables of Castiel.

So he responds, “Cas,” and waits in silence. Cas started this conversation.

“I enjoyed our time together at that cabin,” Cas says, jumping right into it, and Dean itches to shove a hand over his mouth and look around furtively for family members around every corner. He stays still instead; that seems like the mature thing to do. “But I see that… I see that you— or maybe it’s me— neither of us have…” Cas sighs, and that sound, more than anything, grips tight at Dean’s heart. _I enjoyed our time together, but—_ his mind repeats, over and over. “Perhaps it meant different things to us,” Cas says.

This is the speech Dean gave to Marcy Lincom a week after the tenth grade school dance.

“What,” Dean eventually grates out over the dryness in his throat. He needs a drink. Preferably with a 40% or greater alcohol content.

“You didn’t answer when I asked if you wanted me to leave,” Cas starts, and Dean can see it happening right in front of him. He says the wrong thing, and Cas packs his bags, and Cas finds his way to California or New York or Mexico or fuckin’ Canada, and Dean maybe gets a text every couple of months and each time he’ll agonize over responding to Cas until he’ll just decide to leave the message unanswered, and after a year he won’t have anything at all, just an empty bunker and Sam’s pity because God knows Mom’s not gonna stick around much longer either.

“You don’t have to go,” Dean says, and he wishes he’d shuffled Cas into a room somewhere so they wouldn’t be having this conversation in the open hallway. Anyone could see the flush making its way up Dean’s face as Castiel, angel of the Lord, waits for Dean to say the thing that’ll make him stay, and Dean fumbles the catch completely. Dean wants to say _I need you_ , wants to say _I want you_ , but the only time he ever choked out that kind of feeling was when Cas was beating it out of him, and he can’t make himself be vulnerable right now, not when Sam’s been through the wringer and Mom’s missing a finger and Dean’s the one who gets left behind every damn time.

Cas’s mouth twists, and Dean realizes he won’t get another chance. “Cas—”

“I don’t want you to tolerate me,” he says with no inflection at all, and Dean can’t do anything but watch. “I won’t— Dean, I don’t have to be here.”

All Dean can think about is Cas, dead and buried a hundred miles away, and Dean, totally oblivious. He wouldn’t even know. If Cas left without a trace right now, Dean would never know what happened to him. He’d die waiting.

“Cas, this is your home too,” Dean finally manages to choke out, past the shaking in his hands and the heat crawling up the back of his neck. It seems closer to the mark, because Cas softens, and smiles at Dean.

“Think about what you want, Dean,” Cas says quietly, and walks past Dean to wherever he was going in the first place. Dean realizes they haven’t touched each other since yesterday.

Even if Cas stays — and he’s staying, Dean will move heaven and hell and he’ll even embrace minimal emotional vulnerability to make it happen — it looks like their romantic encounters have already reached their expiry date.

The prickling in his shoulder where Cas almost grazed him settles after a moment. Dean goes to his room, which is as personal and private and empty as it always has been, and sits down on his bed. It’s big enough for two. He shakes off the memory of Cas’s mouth on his, of Cas’s fingers tangled with his — aw hell, they didn’t even get to consummate the deal before Dean screwed the pooch. Still, probably easiest like this. Probably for the best. Sam said it might cause problems with Mom, too, which is just an extra reason to avoid unnecessary complications.

It hurts. Dean doesn’t like to think about being rejected after they’ve already started — after Dean already admitted this thing to himself, to Cas, to _Sam_ for God’s sake — but maybe that’s just how it’s supposed to go.

Dean has Cas, alive and in the bunker and maybe, if Dean can get his head screwed on straight, in the bunker for more than a few days or even a few months. It’s enough. The familiar itch of loneliness is irrelevant, and besides, Dean will probably never be completely isolated again, not like the way it was those years after Sam left to go to Stanford and John left to get away from the son who failed him in every possible way.

Feels just as hard, though. Feels just as hard to know that he had what he wanted — what he had no right to want, but wanted anyway — and fucked it beyond anything salvageable in a day.

Dean opens up his laptop. He puts on the latest episode of Game of Thrones, so he can watch some people have worse lives than him before he passes out for the night. Thank God for Netflix.

* * *

Still panting from his morning run, Sam stirs the pot in front of him tiredly. They got a taste for grits, the both of them, after a case in Memphis when they were kids. Dean was just so happy he’d done good enough on the hunt to get to stop by Graceland; Sam had already started to be resentful of Dad parceling out their leisure like war rations, but looking up at Dean’s beaming face, he couldn’t hold onto his anger.

Sam realizes there’s a smile on his face, just from thinking about Dean rifling excitedly through the vinyl in the kitschy gift shop even though they didn’t have a record player. He scoops his breakfast out into a bowl and munches on it, still with that soft smile tugging at his face, as he walks towards their map table room.

“—don’t have to talk about it now,” Dean’s saying faintly.

There’s an answering murmur that sounds like Mom; all Sam can pick out is _I want … how to be better, I…_

He edges closer. He’s wary of blundering into a conversation they need to have, especially now that he’s just starting to realize just how many times he’s walked in on Dean and Cas having a Moment.

“The important thing was that you never wanted to leave us,” Dean says after a while, and Sam swallows. “No matter what I thought, no matter what demons or angels might’ve said, I knew— I knew you loved us and I knew you didn’t wanna leave.”

Love. Dean is throwing around words like love, saying things like _I knew you loved us_ , and Sam’s not sure what to make of it. It’s good, of course it is, except that Dean’s easy _I love you_ s with Mom have only highlighted the fact that after she died, Dean studiously avoided saying it to anyone.

“I didn’t. Of course I didn’t.”

“And then you came back.” Sam knows what’s coming next, and he wonders if he should stop it before it starts, but Dean’s on it, he’s going for it. “But you left again, and that time it wasn’t anything but me— me and Sam, us not being good enough.” Dean stops. Sam inches forward, desperate to see the look on his face and more desperate not to be caught overhearing. Dean’s almost whispering, so Sam stays close enough to hear, so close to the doorway someone would surely see him if he so much as twitched to the right.

“And then you came back to us,” Dean continues hoarsely, “and you were— God, Mom, the only thing Winchesters have in common is torture. It’s the only damn thing.”

Sam wants to step in, and he’s about to do it just as Mom says, “Dean—”

“I told you he went to Hell,” Dean says quietly, and Sam freezes. “Mom, I— I woulda done anything to spare him that. To spare you that. I woulda done anything.” There’s a sniff, then, and Sam realizes Dean’s— Dean’s _crying_. “I tried, I swear, Mom, I did— I thought I was doing—” His breath hitches, and Sam closes his eyes as the sounds of an ugly, loud, messy inhale echo across the bunker. “It’s never enough,” Dean whispers, and Mom doesn’t seem to say anything at all.

There’s silence for long enough that Sam feels okay entering the room. He pads back down the hallway a bit, and then walks just loud enough for Dean and Mom to hear his footsteps. “Hey,” he says quietly, and doesn’t disguise his reaction to seeing Dean wiping his face off with his sleeve as Mom looks on, a hand pressed to her mouth. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” Dean snaps, just as Mom says, “I’m sorry. For all of it.”

Sam sits down next to Dean, because it feels kinder to be near to him with an excuse to avoid looking him in the eyes. “What were you guys talking about?”

“My death,” Mom says. Sam figures that even growing up as a hunter, she didn’t learn that her feelings ought to be shoved down and smothered ‘til they stopped kicking. She probably died too young for that. “And everything after.”

“Then why the hell are you sorry?” Sam asks, supposing it’s probably easier to just cut into it clean after they’ve been dancing around the topic of torture for ten minutes. “Not your fault.”

Mom’s mouth twists, and Dean looks away. Sam blinks. “It is,” Mom says, “it is—”

Dean says, “Mom, I didn’t—”

“He had to raise you!” she shouts at Sam. He can see her curls shaking, her eyes flashing, her lower lip trembling. “How does— how can that happen? How could I leave a— a four year old to, to—” She covers her mouth with both hands again, like her thoughts are too terrifying to let out into the world.

Sam looks at both of them, at all three of them, bruised and scarred by everything from Cas’s latest death to the memory of Jess burning on the ceiling of his first apartment after undergrad. Jesus, Sam’s still touchy around Mom because of an awkward dinner in an alternate universe two days ago.

They’re delicate, is what he means to say, but he’s not sure what’s holding up their precarious balance, meaning he won’t realize he’s knocking it over until it’s too late. Carefully, then, Sam tries, “You’re not responsible for Dad not knowing how to cope with his grief.”

Mary flushes, and Sam looks over to see Dean roll his eyes. Damn it. 

“I mean it,” Sam continues, “it’s no one’s fault but his and, and Azazel’s, I guess, that Dean and I didn’t really get a home to grow up in.” He shrugs after he says it, because frankly, it’s not that big of a deal to him, but Dean knew what he was missing from the get go and from the flinch Sam catches out of the corner of his eye, it still stings.

Mom breathes in. “Okay,” she sighs. “Okay, sure. Yes. But I still wanna know how I can make this better. I know what it did to you,” and she looks over at Dean. “So how do I fix that?”

Sam’s said enough, he thinks, and besides, he’s made it pretty clear there’s nothing to fix. He waits for Dean to say something.

Dean clears his throat, and he says, softly, gently, “Don’t leave us behind.”

“That’s it?” Mary asks, and Sam already knows what Dean’s going to say.

“That’s everything.”


End file.
